One Day

I want to pack up and move away from this city. To get away from all the dramatic deaths in the depths of this depressingly dark city overrun by thieves, thugs and thwarted futures. The City of Brotherly Love? The City of hijackers and hoodlums getting high and hospitalizing the hostages of the city with hammers and 9mm heaters white tees and wife beaters. There are no seasons in this city. No love. No life. Just death…

I want to live in a small town secluded from the rest of the world. The type of town where everyone smiles and waives to each other passing by. A profound place in a pocket of peacefulness. Population 100. The season is always Autumn. Always sweatpants and hoodie weather where everyone is steadily on chill mode. The leaves beautifully dying, drifting as they dim from green to yellow and orange and brown. I guess being a Libra is the reason for my love for the fall weather and the month of October. The calm before the storm. The calm before the winter.

I don’t need a big or fancy house. Just a two bedroom rancher. One room for sleeping the other for writing. The room for writing is to be completely vacant of everything except a chair, a desk, and a typewriter. An infinite amount of ink and paper for my mind is limitless. The only sounds to come from the room will be the constant clicking of the clamoring keys. Echoing throughout my halls. Throughout my mind. Let the clicking be the rhythm and the beat to the story of my imagination. Click, Click, Click! No materialistic distractions. No flat screen TVs, laptops or digital picture frames. Just a naked room with hardwood floors to expand my imagination. A spiderweb or two to accompany a little flare.

I want three to four majestic huskies to mentor and howl at the midnight moon monotonously – man’s best friends. I want bundles of bookshelves in abundance – bolstering my brain yet holstering my insane thoughts that cause pain stiffening the strain as I stubbornly stagger void of swagger through life. Thousands of textbooks and terrifying tales tackling, talking to me whispering to me with each passing glance forming, feeding, furnishing my mind with more and more Sudoku-like stories wandering and weaving into the perfect web of tales to be told.

Tales of psychological thrillers that thoroughly thrash unsuspecting readers who suddenly sense their psyche swiftly descending into madness themselves with each passing chapter. I want people to truly feel what its like to grip on reality. To wake up from a dark and dangerous dream directly into another. The largest lie I’ve listened to my whole life was hearing that you can’t get hurt in your dreams. The sharp shooting shanks  feel all too real as I am viciously, violently awakened to a vigilant state of my mind showered and slimy submerged in sweat – drowning, demanding drugs to demolish my ordeals. The agony. The abominable agony more aggravatingly abrasive  in my dreams than in reality. Now that scares me.

I want to take you there. To the deepest darkest trench of my imagination filled with frightening terrors. Where unfortunately my unstable personalities furiously fight for their freedom in the aphotic zone of my mind. The dreadful “Derek’s” dearth of divine dedication for life itself as they cover me in black and blues as they bash and bruise my mind body and soul. They have always overrun my world as they cast me away to the blistering colds of Alaska’s winters.

I want to purge my system of those shadowy figures the moment they stealthily sneak into my psyche via poems, short stories and novels. I don’t want to be the next Stephen King. I want to be Derek Ferguson – the greatest writer in the world. For people to truly believe the ghosts of Edgar Allen Poe haunts my dreams filling them with riots, ruins and ravenous ravens wreaking havoc under the dimly lit moon.

I want to properly perform puns about broken pencils appearing pointless listing litanies of alliteration in the process. I want to be a psychological symbol, a sign suffering from Borderline who from time to time creates lines that rhyme and rhyme and rhyme.

I want to be that influential figure that everyone looks to for a sense of hope and peace. That person who tears the heads off of his demons and infamously impales them on spears outside of his castle for the whole world to see. For tourist to snapshot and know that once upon a time these demons were real. Were. That anyone can too be the ruler of the kingdom of their mind. The protagonist in the story of their life.

I want a flock of fans fleeing in my direction in hopes for an autograph that I gladly oblige them with. I want to be that glimmer of hope for those too weak to gather enough courage on their own. Don’t take offense to that as the man upstairs knows I’ve been there far too many times. I want to save as many lives as I can because I have been there on many occasions hysterically hammering on Heaven and Hell’s door to let me in. Anywhere but here… house numero uno on main street in Depressionville, Pennsylvania where the only way out is suicide.

What do we say to the God of suicide? “Not today!” -Game of Thrones reference

*Apologies for any typos. I typed a majority of this on my phone*

Feel free to comment with any feedback positive or negative 🙂

– Derek

 

Apple Pie Shots

This picture (taken four years ago) is the last memory I had of this night. I barely remember what apple pie shots are exactly. All I recall was licking cinnamon off of my hand, drinking a sip of apple juice, downing a double shot of rum, and getting whipped cream shot into my mouth. This happened about eight times before everything went black. 

The next morning I drunkenly woke up with blood all over my pillows and blankets. Random cuts and bruises covered my whole body. That’s when I looked over to see my roommate staring at me; shaking his head. I was informed the night before I was arrested for Public Drunkenness and Underage Drinking. 

I wish I could tell you that was the last time I was arrested for the exact same misdemeanors.

I wish I could tell you I never blacked out again from drinking. 

I wish I could tell you I wasn’t an alcoholic…

… but that sentence would be filled with fabrication. 

This year I can count the days I’ve been out drinking on one hand. It seems I have come a long way. But the journey is never over…

Objects in the mirror

Through trial and error I have come to the conclusion that objects in the mirror are indeed closer than they appear. It is extremely difficult to accumulate enough strength to power through and move on from difficult life situations. Suffering through depression, to me, is like driving with a flat tire in the prehistoric ages. Everyone around you appears to be gracefully galloping through life in the fast lane while you’re stuck riding the shoulder scraping metal as sparks fly every which way. You’re smooth sailing weightless hybrid that would steadily burn rubber on highways has now turned into a Flintstone car being powered by blood, sweat and literal tears.

Many people find that struggling to get through depression is one of the most challenging tasks that life can lob at a person. I have vigorously tried time and time again and I believe I have finally come up with a solution for myself; leaving objects in the rear-view mirror. I found that I was constantly thinking about everything that I should have done, things I could have done differently, what if’s and why did I’s. 

If only I had focused more on my studies than the girls on campus…

If only I looked forward to waking up early and arriving to class and work on time instead of the next taste of alcohol and drugs

IF ONLY I DIDN’T DROP OUT OF COLLEGE AND COMPLETELY RUIN MY FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Constantly thinking about these situations on the regular clouded my mind and the current future I was working on. With every job that I obtain I know I could be making double. With every time I apply for classes I know I should have completed them semesters ago. With every time I look at my depressingly dry bank account I know I could be sitting on six figures easily. If only if only if only.

I found that having these recurring thoughts darkened my lifestyle forming a black hole of liposuction stealing every ounce of motivation and determination in my life. In turn I have lost many jobs and wasted many years of college stuck in the darkness – blinded from all light dragging my wheels on the side of the road. 

With every year I waste thinking back at what I could have done differently I waste a year at starting new and working my way back up.

No longer will I waste the days away in my dimly lit room searching for an answer in my past. No longer will I blow paycheck after paycheck at the casino in hopes striking gold. No longer will I continue to struggle through life on this rickety Flintstone car. The soles on my shoes are all worn out.

It is finally time for me to throw that old car away. Before I can drive I again I must first walk, jog, run, sprint, bike and then I will be back on my feet. I know I can’t expect to get a high paying job, but I will put every ounce of strength in me to work until I get there. And then I will work some more. Farewell to the past.

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, but if you keep on driving they will never catch you. 

(Writing is my own therapeutic way of getting better. Seeing, in writing, the ridiculous things I have done in the past and the time I have wasted on useless nonsense alone motivates me even more to try harder each day to live healthy and successful life. Also, reading the feedback you all have been giving me is one the few things that put a smile on my face these days. I really appreciate and look forward to hearing from you all.)

Thank you all for reading,

– Derek