Living on an edge no one would want to

Mentally ill people live on the edge of the universe. 

Mentally ill people hang onto planet earth with ragged bloody fingernails.  I do not know why we do this.  It is not easy living on planet earth when one has mental illness.   

Let’s be up front. 

You will not find my triumphant story on amazon.com/books.  I have never been a Somewhat-Special-Victor-Over-Life-Problems person.  I am more a Tarnished-Something-Or-Other.  I am the skeleton in the closet.  People say that I am a failure.  That my life is a waste.  Such a shame.  Sometimes they pray for me.  Lots of people have prayed for me.  A lot.  Of prayers.  But I still struggle. 

I am not angry. 

But.  I will not be a failure. 

I will be a success.  A success at failing.  I will be failure perfected.  The jewel in the tiara of failure.  A shattered diamond in a chipped glass world. 

Quite simply, I will inspire.  

Not half egotistic, am I?

I wasn’t always like this.  Once upon a time I was born new and beautiful and straight.  My parents loved me.  But it was crooked love.  I grew up crooked.  I loved them.  But it was honest love.  My family exploded.  I splintered. 

Once upon a time I did not feel creepy hands on my body that no one else can see.  Hands that exist only in my world.  Never yours.  I just want you to know that.  That once I was kind of like you.  I was okay.  I had promise. 

I can’t talk about this stuff.  No one cares.  Not even when everyone is drunk.  I don’t think.  I would know this if I were ever to attend for instance, a Christmas party.  I have never attended a Christmas party.  I have never been invited to a Christmas party.  At Christmas I drink alone and talk to myself.  I have no idea what other drunk people talk about.  Maybe they don’t talk.  Maybe hunched over their drinks they sip silently, furtively. 

Maybe I am the only chatty drunk.

As I think these thoughts, I look at the wall.  Today there is no flashback blood on the wall.  I have very clean walls.  The landlady comments on how clean my walls are.  I am a very clean mentally ill person.  Apparently, I should not be.  Clean I mean.  Not mentally ill.  No one ever says I should not be mentally ill.  People say I should not be clean.  Clean and mental illness should not go together.  There is not room in a person for both clean and mental illness.  But I am a very clean mentally ill person. 

I have failed many things in life but I have not yet failed housework. 

One Brownie point for me. 

According to my friends.

Originally written 2006, revised 2020