Sorry, Helen

How do you spell deja vu?

Christmas was a bastard.  I don't know how three months escaped my sense of time, but there they went, and other things too, and suddenly it was March and nothing had really improved.  My partner left me.  I took such measures to avoid giving them away, but I suppose now it doesn't matter and her name was Helen.

Helen's a soldier and as such has sexual health checks every six months or so.  This time one came back positive and as she hadn't been with anyone else it must've been me.  Therefore, understandably, she left me.  I know I deserved it.  I do know and I don't need anyone else to tell me.  I get scared and I can't say no and I never want to do it but I don't know what else to do and I'm so, so sorry, Helen.  I only cared about you.  They just frightened me and you know how badly that can go.

Thank you for the care and the patience and the love.  You kept me going.  I don't know if I could regret anything more, and I hope you can forgive me one day.

You are the wonder that's keeping
The bright stars apart
My muse
And my marvel
And half of my heart.

Sorry, darling.

I am alive

Just about.

Christmas nearly killed me.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Especially to my little one.

I don't think it was ever bias that you were mine.  You are the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

For you, for ever.

Sleep tight.

Christmas Wrapping

I sat, crossed-legged on the cold, faux laminate floor today, wrapping presents.  Each one had a different variant of Christmas-themed paper, one holly, one ivy, one fairy, one some sort of terrible garish tartan that the only thing deserving of being wrapped in it would be a set of bagpipes.  Because the only person I would ever dream of giving bagpipes to would be that man at the station who called me a twat.  I might be a twat, sir, but you, sir, you, sir, are a Cunt.

I like Christmas, in its way, but like my birthday, it reminds me incessantly of the slow march towards death.  It inevitably recalls the lost magic of my youth, and the ever-growing tragedy of another year I've done fuck-all with.  Every year the pile of Christmas cards grows smaller, like it has The Shrinks, and neighbours die, and the round robin letter those most loathed people send becomes a tally of divorce and demise and little Sophie got AIDs this year and apart from her crippling heroin addiction we can't think how.

I do really like Christmas.  I just don't like mine.

It could've been worse; at least I didn't do the song.

CALMzone

Those of you based in the Thames Valley area might be interested to know that a new CALMzone has recently been established there.  CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) is a registered charity that exists to prevent male suicide in the UK, which is the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20-45.  They offer a free, confidential and anonymous phoneline and web chat service between the hours of 5pm and midnight, every day of the year.

The Thames Valley branch is the third in the UK, the others being in Merseyside and London - probably because they're all such depressing places to live (sorry) - and will allow more men in the Berks/Bucks/Ox area to access local support.  So if you, like me, frequently find yourself roaming the Thames Valley landscape like Cathy across the moorland, pining for Heathcliff or your sadly misplaced mental health, do keep them in mind.

Find them on their website at https://www.thecalmzone.net/, or phone them on:
0800 58 58 58 (Nationwide inc. Merseyside and Thames Valley)
0808 802 58 58 (London)

In other news, this week I'll be curating the Twitter account for Mental Health Voices over at @MH_Voices.  If you have any topics on the... topic of mental health that you think should be discussed, drop me a line here or there.

Happy International Tea Day.

Every day is tea day for me.

Dickhead

I took your death out on another kid who had your look.  His teeth were less crooked but his smile was yours and I didn't want anyone to have that.  They never did it quite as well as you did anyway.

I'm sorry I forgot your birthday.  In years past and when I hadn't found your grave, I left flowers for another boy who died your age in the hope that somehow they'd be known.  I found your place in June, and the headstone looked so new I half-believed they must've buried you last week.  That birthday you got roses, and irises and lilies and all the things we never would have got you years before.  But somehow now they're all I think to buy.

I forgot because it's changed somewhere.  Not a day went by I didn't used to think of you, and if I hadn't slept than I'd have said it's not an hour.  But it's been a long, long time since then, and I can go whole days without remembering that I miss you.  I'm sorry for it, and I'm sorry that I'm glad about it too.  I'm sorry that I'm tired of being sad for you.

When you drank yourself to death alone that Friday night, I don't know where I was.  I don't know why I wasn't there that time, when every other week I'd been beside you.  And still today I wonder how intentional it was, your missing letter never able to confirm it either way.  I knew that you weren't happy all the time but then who is?  You laughed too much to die.

I still see your face as clearly as I ever could, the smile, the gap between your teeth.  I might not think about you every day but there's yet to be a week.  And still it brings the same old sting, and anger that you couldn't stick around.  I wish I'd had the chance to hate you, even more the chance to die before you.  I wish I didn't know you, ever, or just never knew you'd gone for good.  I wish I didn't miss you like I do.

Oh

I have completely forgotten what day my birthday is.

I think it might be some sort of stroke.