Day 134: Authenticity, Pt. One

Authenticity. Desired by many, achieved by few. Being as close to the definition of you as possible. The Greeks theorized about a world of Souls, where the truest forms of all things existed, and earthly things were only valuable if they measured up closely to their true forms.

Here's what gets me though. I've been living these past five months as if the true me would show in all I do. If you had to make an effort to be yourself, was that really being yourself? So I didn't bother trying.

And I turned into a Monster.

I hated who I became. That hatred grew to define me. I took it out on others who'd been so close to me. I continued doing things I hated and swore I'd never do. Why? Because I enjoyed the self-hatred. Self-destruction became my hobby. My reputation and well being weren't important. Only the guilty pleasures I'd been denying myself since I'd arrived to Denton.

I think I'm barely starting to realize how much breaking up with Kaitlin shook me. That single event changed the direction of my life completely. My parents call it an answer to prayer and a drastic improvement. My brother, thought not nearly as outspoken, would probably agree. But they're thousands of miles away. They're not here to see the result, what's left of me. I mean, there are moments that I want to say the breakup destroyed me. My entire future plan hinged on her being a part of my life. And she was, until she wasn't. Until my selfish desires, my out of control libido, my shame of hiding from my parents' opinion, and whatever else happened to drive us apart.

At least one of us handled that well.

I'm a far cry from who I used to be. I've regressed - I've lost years from my maturity. I used to be worth listening to. I used to be a model for redemption. I used to be worth caring about. Quiet, humble, thoughtful, caring, loving, honest, professional; but I've destroyed or trampled over all I used to be worth. My reputation is ruined. My friends, few. My good qualities, muddied.

Everyone knows me for what I am: a waste of space and air. It would take a lifetime of effort to try and recover from that. It's already going to take that to regain my self-respect. But the terrible memories in this town are haunting. The best option, the easy option, is the nuclear option. New town, new people, no memories - just a nice clean slate with which to redeem myself. Heck, I'd take a new job to go with it. Even with a clean slate it'll take more effort than I've ever believed to make it through the rebuilding process.

Every building needs a foundation. I just need to find mine, and hold it tight.

What I am on my own, my true definition of who I am separate of everyone.
That has to be my foundation.

Day 133: What I mean when I say I love you

Your smile is my greatest work.

I trust you implicitly.

I know you to be an incredibly beautiful person.

I can see amazing potential.

I can also see great character, which means unlike most others, you can actually choose to live up to your potential.

When I die, I want you by my side.

The thought of you makes me smile.

I wish I could draw, because I could spend years trying to capture your beauty.

You are my best friend.

If I went blind, I'd already know your face by touch.

I love your laugh.

I love you.

You are my greatest muse.

You are the inspiration that makes me try harder, live better, and go farther.

I'd rather spend time with you than with anyone else on earth.

I really mean it.

Day 132: A True Horror Story

I can hardly remember what it feels like to have somebody mean something to me. That's scarier to me than just about anything else I could imagine. I spent so many years feeling this great emotion for Bailey, and then Kaitlin, but these last few months have been full of pain and emptiness.
Nothing. Devoid of meaning. Like I sat around and did nothing for four months (Has it really been that long?) I hardly feel aliv. Sure, being awake in the daytime, switching stores, there have been some nice changes. Improvements. But what does it mean? Nothing.
I want somebody to share life with. To put a smile on somebody's face. To be the half of a whole. Someone who encourages me to be me. A natural love. I want to want a future with somebody. Comfort in a simple embrace.
I've felt that once before, and I miss it dearly.
I hate existing. I want to LIVE. Surely thats not so much to ask.

You mean somewhere between a friend and the world to me, but I want you to mean the world.

Confound it all, love
All terrors and fears
Guide me home
Safely through the years
Mark me. I'm yours.
Love, lead me home.

I once smiled, proud and confident, because I felt that I alone knew the true nature of love. That was a wondrous feeling. I didn't lose that at the breakup. It was when she moved on, when she couldn't stand talking to me anymore. When I truly lost my best friend. I lost confidence then, not in humanity, but in myself. I lost hope in what I could be, and I quit trying. What was the point of even trying? I had nothing to succeed for. I don't want some foolish American success. I want the family that I gave up in West & Main.
There can be nothing left for me, if not that.

There's the tale of two Bens.
There is who I want to be, and who I am.
I want to be a Darcy, someone who can be persuaded only by love to act. Aragorn, to whom time and distance mean nothing. A Creo, where the separation of death did nothing to quell the depth of his love. A Hansen, who is driven by his love that he will accept no end, except one where they end up together. A Thomas Hunter, whose newfound discovery of the true definition of love kindles a fire that leads a people.
And then there's who I am.

Love is the Father of emotion. It's not this cheapo idea that everyone buys into. It's so great, expansive, and full of meaning. Greater than a heartbeat. Greater than a self, and anything I've ever known.
How I miss it.


I believe in the power of love. I believe in what it can do to me. I believe I'll feel it again one day. I just wish that day would come soon. Sooner, rather than later.
Please. 

Day 131: In Remembrance.

What the hell have I been doing?

I remember now.
That morning back in June, at the end of it all, as I walked away from the house for the final time, I knew what I needed to do. It was the same as when it ended with Jacelyn. I needed to grow; to improve; to become a human being that was more than a waste of a breath to name. I was close. I knew I had to be close. But I wasn't there yet. I didn't get it, it wasn't clicking, something had to change.

I had to be a better man.

And I remember now all of that.

Funny how that happens. The beginnings of attraction (or Love, if you take Stendhal's definition) make you remember all the reasons you've ever loved to begin with.

I think I believe that loving is a key foundation of humanity. A human without love is not a human at all.

And I haven't been very human lately.

Day 130: #doihaveyourattentionnow

 “Shh. Mark this.” The man put his finger to his lips and pointed forward. 

The empty seats in front of us slowly began to settle in, one family at a time, but I didn’t see this. I followed his finger towards the front, past the families being ushered to their seats, past the sounds of impatient children who wanted to see somebody make a fool of themselves onstage for a cheap laugh.

Another sound added itself to the mix. A large whoosh as gears and pulleys worked to pull the curtain back. Immediately a cool air flooded the room, filling every corner, smothering all sounds, drawing everyone’s attention to the front. The sudden drop of temperature sent a chill to my spine. The man next to me gave me a half-hearted crooked smile and lowered his finger.

There was a sudden, sharp sound of leather striking wood. I jerked my head to see the empty stage. Another step. Another, each step with more purpose than the second, a surety of foot as each step grew louder and louder. The Performer emerged from the empty black space, glided down center stage to the edge of the apron and thrust out his smoking hand with a sly smile. “Do I have your attention now?”

Day 129: Day 445

When one passion and life-goal is removed, it must be replaced if you ever wish to get out of the rut in which you live exist wallow.

Day 128: Lightning Strikes Once

I saw her, at long last. Perfection embodied. She knocked, I answered. She saw me, and looked past me for another. I was unsuitable, so she left to continue on her search.

I don't want to miss the next lightning strike, but I think I deserve to.

What I've become is horrendous, monstrous. I feel like a twisted shadow of my former self, a shade with my fashions and knowledges with none of my tendencies or cares. A self important, pleasure seeking sack of meat. Undeserving of a shot at perfection. Naturally, yes we all come that way, but I went in the opposite direction, far from what I 've ever hoped to achieve. In a world where Facebook doesn't exist and people are blunt and say what they should, they call that a waste of air & space.

Yeah, thats how theyd put it. Not exactly a lightning rod in a storm.

Day 127: Disillusioned

Going cold with the world fading. A soft apology as her knife bleeds me out.

That used to be one of the most powerful images I ever thought of.

     Sono mie care lui, e il mio

For I am my beloved's, and he is mine.

I've always imagined that being the most beautiful dream I could have about R, but I don't remember dreaming it. I imagined it sure, but I didn't dream it. When I write it, I do remember a feeling that I missed out on the best thing that could ever happen to me, but that was okay because of everything I'd learned. All I could take away. Beauty, in it's truest form, was never meant to be possessed, but admired. How can you not stand in awe of the pinnacle of God's creation? How dare we think we are worthy to possess such a great wonder? I was so lucky, nay blessed!, to have witnessed it so early in my lifetime. My failure to successfully woo R wasn't on me. Life had happened, just how it happens everyday.

Then there were those after, most prominently Kaitlin. I struggle with that most days, some worse than others, and others not at all. Looking back, in those last months we were never truly happy; not like we had been in those early months. The denial of the fact made it worse. For myself, I was just weary of fighting my family, weary of trying to be patient, weary of trying to reconcile my desire of moving constantly with her desire to settle down as soon as possible. Weary of trying to reconcile a difference that she swore didn't exist. It went on longer and farther than it should have. I made too many promises, com(promises), and the like trying to make it work. I tried so hard to make her my entire life, and now that she's gone, I feel aimless.

That loss, that heartbreak, that knife in my chest -- that one's on me. As is that feeling of being lost.

The void that's left, it takes so much time to heal, and even then it would take so long to refill. You can never truly replace someone who's meant so much to you for so long. It's why everyone always thought I never got over R, when R is merely an afterthought. She is by far my greatest muse,, but I possess no desire to ever see her again. Even when Facebook pops a photo of her into my timeline, she's nowhere near as beautiful as she used to be. That hurts pretty bad. It's all so painful - the memories that lie around every corner in this godforsaken metroplex. Can't even go to Tyler without dealing with it because I have to go through Forney and Mesquite, not to mention the memories in Denton. I think I finally understand the phrase terrifying beauty.

I have to get far away from here. I need a true chance to heal. A chance to do all I've ever dreamed of doing. Acting, writing, music, all of it. To find myself again, not this stupid man-whore immoral facade I've been living.

I want to get far away from here.
I don't want to come back.
Never again, if I can help it.

    to find a true beauty to admire

*fin*

(how many hearts will I break to piece mine together?)

Day 126: West & Main

On the corner of West and Main, there stands a house.

The front door is custom hand-carved redwood; the doorknob, iron . It stands exactly 8 ft high. Behind the door lies seven feet and three inches of carpet. The entryway leads to an open room, twenty-two feet by sixteen. Clockwise, starting at the north-east corner, you have a couch, two sitting chairs split by a end table, a piano, and a fireplace. From here, most people go to the kitchen. The kitchen itself is rather unassuming; most of the appliances are aged gas-operated machines. The small dining room table sits lower than the rest of the kitchen, surrounded by five chairs.

After the kitchen, there's the two hallways. The first has five doors. The first door on the left leads to a pink room. The door after it, a blue room. The room at the end of the hall is beige, though you wouldn't know for all the stuffed bookshelves that line the room. On the right, there's the bathroom, recently renovated with hardwood flooring. The last room is empty, both in color and furnishing.

The second hallway is only four feet long, but it leads to the master bedroom, complete with high ceilings and black/white contrasts. The master bath is home to the building's only dedicated bathtub, the kind with the jacuzzi attachments. Outside the windows lies the rear of the house, a spacious backyard that's nigh impossible to fill. The fences were put up one by one over the years as the neighbors moved in.

The house itself is rather unassuming. It stands and exists, just as complete as whenever it was built thirty-six years ago.

Actually, no. That's a lie. The house is incomplete. It stands empty, because I made it empty. You see, that house used to be a home to a lovely suburban family with a man, his wife, and their slightly above average number of three children.

The house that stands at West and Main was my home. I remember a day when turning that final corner and seeing it was often the best moment of day because I knew my family waited inside. That front door was hand-carved by my father and I. It took us all summer, but the end result was attached to our door frame before I left for college. When my parents died, I moved it here. I had to have the entryway redone to fit the larger door.

Behind that door lies seven feet and three inches of carpet. I have scrubbed at that carpet once a week for the past eight years, and I cannot get the smell of dog pee out. Oliver and Abigail both could never train Samantha quite right. The old girl always barely made to the door before she couldn't wait any longer. I never minded cleaning it up, though. The entryway walls were adorned with photographs – when Alice and I had met, wed, vacationed, the pregnancy chronicles, and family photographs as one by one our family had grown larger. This was my happy place; where I could always go to relax; run down memory lane as smiles replayed themselves through my head.

Past the entryway is the living room. Clockwise, starting at the north-east corner, you have a couch, two sitting chairs split by a end table, a piano, and a fireplace. The couch had always been reserved for guests, and then as the years wore on, our children. The two chairs facing the fireplace were reading chairs; at any given time a stack of books knee high were stacked next to each chair, a reminder of long nights spent together in far away places. The piano was mine, and as time wore on Oliver's as well. The boy had a knack for music that I was only a mere shadow of. His reading music was better than anything I've ever bought with money.

The kitchen. Each appliance was inherited, a parting gift in our parent's will to complete our home. Saturday mornings were pancake mornings. Abigail woke up at the crack of dawn to get fresh eggs from the chicken coop that the neighbors always complained about. Michelle and Oliver would take turns beating the batter with the whisk, often to a happy tune Abigail would bless us with as she helped her mother prepare the skillet. The kids loved peanut butter pancakes; a taste acquired from their mother that I couldn't ever stomach. But I ate them anyway. The dishes were always washed and put away immediately. So many Saturdays we spent at the park, walking one of the many rescue dogs that paraded through our yards as the years wore on. The kids loved each one as much as they loved Samantha. Each dog was family.

That first hallway belonged to them. Michelle had the pink room. The youngest of our three children, she had her walls covered in black leaves and balloons, blowing in an invisible wind in the field of her young imagination. She had painted the first branch of leaves herself with finger-paint we'd left out. She finished the entire room with her mother, who added balloons as her own personal touch. Michelle always talked about flying away to places she'd heard of; maybe one day she'll go. But not yet; she's far too young.

Next is Oliver's room. Alternating dark and light blue stripes line the walls. Above his headboard hung his first violin, a small beat up thing his mother had given me years ago that had been passed down to him. Below it was a blue-ribbon that he'd won at State as a soloist freshman year of high school. On his desk was a photograph of a girl he'd met there, a lovely thing with piercing green eyes. He'd never told me her name, but I think she was the only reason he's ever wanted to go back. I can see so much of me in his face, but thank the L-RD that he had his mother's eyes. They are no one color, but are both green, blue, grey, and hazel at the same time. He's already composed his first movie score; a short that he and his friend had put together. They both could go a long way, if they wanted. They possess the skill, but lack the ambition.

The white room was Abigail's. She'd left at the early age of sixteen to pursue her dancing career. Her mother gave her that passion. She was in Chicago now, dancing full-time for the main stage, but she hears talk about moving her to New York. We've never missed a single opening night. She was always my little girl, you know? But she was never settled here. Her room was always barren beyond the necessities. 'Who needs possessions when you have a passion?' she'd asked me. She knew what she wanted, and may G-d damn anyone who got in her way.

The middle room was my office. On one shelf I had leaf pages, printed and haphazardly stacked about as I frantically searched for the next big idea. That's what was on the other shelf; my big ideas bound in leather, sold on the market. Not all the books were mine; I had to pay my respects to every writer who I'd ever read and learned from. But the middle, that was my desk. Everything I'd ever penned after College came from that desk. It'd seen tears, heard screams, and it's seen the best and the worst of me. When we'd first bought the house, before Abigail had come to us, I always thought that my writing time would be my time, and that I'd have to make sure to spend time with my kids before their bedtime. But I could never close the door, never keep them out. Like their mom, they were my everything. I owed it all to them. 'You can't compartmentalize your life away; you are the sum of it's parts'. I penned it and hung it above my desk as a reminder.

After the wedding, Alice and I came to what was now our house. Our new home symbolizing all that was our life and our future together. I'd carried her in, straight through that short narrow hallway to our bedroom. It was our sanctuary. We'd forged a family together in that room, a lovely room where all the world and it's pretenses were stripped away. Outside that room, we were but a man and woman joined in marriage. Inside that room, we were a single being; G-D's greatest creation. Every morning, it overwhelmed me that such a captivating creature could love me. I felt that we were unseparable, even unto death and beyond. We were the greatest love story I'd ever know. Above our headboard hung a picture frame. The photograph was from the Grand Canyon for our first anniversary. We had screamed at the morning sunrise together, our fists raised as we quoted our favorite poet. “We celebrate ourselves!” It was our challenge to the world, and the world had yet to answer.

We spent years in that home.Any soul who needed a home was always welcome in ours. But time wore us down. Our kids grew old, and they moved away. We grew old, and withered away. Grandkids came and went, and then great-grandkids. Our last family photograph as a family had twenty souls in it, every one of them the product of our union.

But that house on West and Main, as lovely as it was, never existed. I never watched it age. I never filled it with my music, my children, or my love. Every memory I have of that house is a painful dream, because it is all dependent on one thing – my love, my devotion, my undivided attention to Alice. It was what my life could've been. It was what my life should've been. It's how I'd always dreamed of it being. But now my dreams torment me every time I close my eyes. The sound of Abigail's voice, her swift and subtle movements; Oliver's fingers across the keys as his eyes read the handwritten sheets, Michelle's deft strokes as her vision guided her hands. The faces of my unborn children are so beautiful; just as beautiful as their mother's, and I know hers by touch.

Day 125: Separation Pt. 2

So going back and re-reading Separation is probably the worst thing and the best thing I could've ever done.

Dear G-d, what could have I been thinking?

Day 124:Things I've Always Wanted

To love. To bring happiness. To be the other half. To complete somebody else.

To perform. To act. To play. To live and die in the shoes of others.

To write. To heal. To think out loud to the sound of my keyboard.

To direct. To envision. To share.

To counsel. To guide. To help others the way I've been helped.

To reduce myself so others can be maximized.


To die, so others may live.

Day 123: A Reprieve

So I went up to work for dinner around 11:30, and waited in line to order. I briefly noted that the guy in front of me had handcuffs on his belt, but I'm used to seeing cops in there after 11PM so I didnt really think anything of it.

So I got up to the counter, and naturally the cashier's first question was "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Why, I'm getting food to go with my beer," I replied sarcastically.
"Wait, so you've been drinking? Did you drive? You shouldn't drink and drive!" she spouted off.
"I haven't had anything yet, and I live a mile down the road, silly."

It was at this point she looked to her right, where a cop was staring ME down with that look like "Seriously boy, I came here to eat, not take you in."

It was embarrassing.
And I didn't drink anything.

Day 122: Regret and the Power of Love

Some people would call wanting to change the past a pipe dream. I would call it regret, although regret in itself is a pipe dream. This deep reaching sorrow we feel changes nothing about our past.

But isn't regret more than just that? It's an ocean of sorrow, constantly drowning us without killing. It's a vehicle that drives our future. It's an intense desire to do better, with the simultaneous belief that you can't. It's the symptom of unforgiveness, and self pity. Regret blurs hindsight, it cripples confidence, and it destroys your soul.

I used to believe that doubt was the greatest enemy of mankind, but doubt is merely an effect; and regret is the cause.

Just a word that triggers a flood of memories. Powerful enough to bring me to my knees and weep with abandon, apologizing incoherently through my clogged throat. All I can remember is the wrong I've done.

I should've treated you with more respect. I should've left your innocence where it was. You should've been more important to me. I should've lived to make you feel loved, safe, and secure. Every day should've been my gift to you. All the things that you were to me, and yet I was more important to myself. That alone is the worst transgression I could've committed against you.

Now we're separated and unreconciled, and I'm dead to myself. I don't think I could've ever really let you go. Too many good memories that we shared still reside in my brain. Every day that I wake up, I miss you. Every day, I pray for the best for you, and I regret that I wasn't.

That's the power of love - that we can die unto ourselves and still be fully alive.

Day 121: Move on

And even when your hope is gone. . .

Day 120: Torn

I'm so torn. 

One one hand, I want to drive down there. I want to throw myself in her arms. I want to weep and beg for forgiveness. I want to get down on one knee. I want to spin her around in my arms. I want to kiss her deeply. I want to hold her. I want to see her smile. I want to know that every transgression is forgotten. I want to know that I can fulfill all that I ever promised. 

On the other, I know I shouldn't. It's so unfair of me to tug at her heart like that. I'm afraid she'll cut right through me. I'm afraid that I'll be rejected. I'm afraid that I'll make promises of silence, because I can't keep them.  I'm afraid that everything I say or do falls on deaf ears. I'm afraid to be hated. I'm afraid if she threatens to stab me in the chest, I'll ask her to. I'm afraid that things will stay the way they are.

Which is the right hand?

Day 119: The Truth

I don't want success.

I want you.

Day 118: The Courtroom of Life

There are some days where I'm sickened by Facebook. It's become a courtroom of sorts. As long as everything is going good in somebody's life, then it's all roses and cupcakes and sugar-free milkshakes (sugar isn't good for that diet we're on sister!). But the second something happens, i.e. a breakup, it becomes a trial. Everyone falls behind one person, supporting them, while badmouthing the other party involved. The judgement has been passed, and I've been found guilty.

It's hard enough learning to live alone again.
It's hard enough losing your best friend.
It's hard enough watching your future disappear.

It's even worse having to put up with accusations of infidelity, and everyone trying to make me the bad guy. People jump to conclusions so quickly and easily it's impossible to head things off. Naturally, its a break up. We're both going to be upset. We're both hurt and wounded. But why on G-d's green earth does there have to be opposite sides to the whole thing? Sometimes it's not cheating, lack of love, money issues, or anything else. Breakups happen. There doesn't have to be a bad guy to everything.

I still care for her, and I miss her dearly. But the only way we're ever going to get past it is by moving on. It would be nice to do so without having to put up with baseless accusations.

Day 117: The Pettiness of Pity

I'm so pitiful. And I hate it.
Once again I find myself pining over a girl that I've loved when she obviously doesn't want anything to do with me anymore. Granted, the situation is a little changed from last time, given that the time I spent loving her we were actually in a relationship. I surely can't be expected to move on from eighteen months in just a week. These things take time I get that. But this was my future that I sacrificed and bled for that I lost. I fought against my family, and some of my friends, to do so.

Talking about it helps. Blogging helps too, but talking does help more. But one friend is a world away (or maybe just half), and there's a nagging voice in the back of my head that feels like a stupid idiot (the redundancy) for not being able to deal with it like a mature human being. Posting mopey facebook statuses, constantly checking their facebooks to wound myself more, it's just wallowing in my ever growing pool of blood.  

It's petty. It's pitiful. And I'll never move on like this.
Of course that begs the question, do I really want to move on?

That mankind would ever open up ourselves to such pain; to give someone else the keys to your happiness and watch them steal it away, is beyond comprehension. The trust that everything will go as planned and end in happiness is one in a billion. But that one in a billion is enough to make us spend our lives searching for it. If every break up hurts worse than the last, why do we continue to put ourselves through this?

Is it really worth it?

Day 116: Perception and Deceit

Plans are always subject to change until they happen. My dad has been telling me that since we lived in Mexico. To some measure of extent, it is true, but that's beside the point. I'm not here to nitpick that.

What was the plan?
Engagement on March 24th.
Marriage on July 14th.
Honeymoon in Colorado.
3/4 planned kids named;
and when we were gonna start with those.
Careers chosen.
Every major step of our lives for the next five years and some beyond was set in stone.

Last week it got changed to this.

Maybe get together in the future?

Saturday it became

Move on without each other, Learn from our mistakes.

Yesterday. . .
She moved on. And she looks so happy doing it.

To me, thats what love is. You serve them to bring them happiness and joy, and doing so brings you happiness and joy. It was the most amazing feeling to see her smile and know it was because of me.

But now. . . she seems happier than she has in recent months. More consistently anyways. And it's killing me inside.

What did I miss in that time? Where did everything go completely wrong?

And why must I live out my half of our plans without her here by my side?

Day 115: Mortal

I've never been punched in the gut.
I've never been shot in the gut.

I imagine this is what it feels like to be shot.

Day 114: The End of All Things

what am I on my own

what am "I" on my own

what am "I" on my own

"yes, my body did just as you implied
while some ghost we'll call 'I' idly watched through its eyes"
-mwY

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
-Romans 7:15

This is how I act.

Hello everyone. My name is Ben, and I'm addicted to success. I've done so much that people no longer believe that I've done everything I say, and yet it's not enough. I want to do more. I want to prove to my parents, my family, my friends that I'm not a waste of breath and support: I can live up to my potential. I don't think I'd be satisfied with a movie that I wrote, directed, starred in, and wrote the score for, and won an Oscar in all of those categories. I'm not satisfied with being great. I must be the best, because then everyone's praise of me will be validated.

This is how I wish I was.
Hello everyone. My name is Ben, and I'm a nice guy. Not the jerks who say they're nice and then go on and turn into something later on down the line. I am here for the sole purpose of loving and supporting the girl of my dreams, existing to ensure her happiness, which in turn brings me happiness. I want to wildly sweep her off her feet in ways she had never imagined would come true, say all the cheesy lines without even once thinking in the back of my head, "I sound like a really bad romantic comedy." I want to be the man that every girl dreams they could have, the real Prince Charming. When my funeral comes, I want the one thing that my family remembers is my unsurpassed level of devotion to my wife.

This is how I am.
Hello everyone. My name is Ben, and I'm a jackass man-whore degenerate hormone driven driven by pleasure. That which gives me shallow satisfaction I pursue without regards to thought or morality. The shallow, the meaningless actions, one-night stands, it's all easy and second nature to me. I thrive on it. It gives me the carnal pleasures that feed my addictions without any of the responsibilities or emotional attachments of a relationship.

Hello, my name is Ben. And today, I don't feel like I deserve to live. 

Day 113: This is the End.

Not how I imagined saying goodbye.

Day 112: Hindsight

It's hard to try to move forward without looking back.

Day 111: Alive

I'm sickened by compassion.

I'm stifled by my limitations.

Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away.