I wonder how to define reality then. Last night I saw a man burning. I knew he wasn't there, but I talked to him anyway. He had
two faces, both of them mine, a face into each world. The world of real things, and the world I see. The face that looked into the
real world was in flames. I asked him why and he told me that if I thought about it long enough, I'd understand. I thought about it
all night. I think I do understand. If I look into reality too long, it'll consume me...burn me up from the inside out, destroy me. I
already feel destroyed by what I've seen and done, having to look at it makes it so much worse. Is that what the man, the image of
myself in flames, was trying to tell me? Of course I know he was a dream...but sometimes I wonder if dreams are all I have left.
Dreams filled with cold fire that doesn't burn, air with no scent and people who don't laugh and jeer. Dreams with no expectations,
constantly changing and melding with themselves, until there is no hint of usual things. A world I control, I guide, master of my
own universe.In my dream, if I say it, it is. If I will it, there is no dissent. Awake I'm at the mercy of the people around me, the
people in control. Guided by their potions and chemicals and threats and rewards. Complete humiliation of knowing I'm begging for
the scraps of their praise like a dog, hoping for the treat if I do everything right. If I'm good.
If there were only a way to make the dreams real, to erase the coldness from the world everyone wants me to be in. To negate
green tiled floors and the smell of antiseptic. To erase needles and pills and tiny paper cups that are so hard to hold when you're
fingers are blistered. To take away the people who would punish, and mock, and deride. Just take the dream world, with it's two
faced Janus head, right along with me when I wake up.
Just like that woman, Deborah, the crazy woman in that book I read, the woman who saw the gods, the gods that were always
falling and always on fire. The ones who told her what was right and what was happening. The girl who felt the same fire I do,
who had the volcano in her and had to let it out or die. I know what she felt, and they told her she was crazy too. She had to do
what she had to do, and only she understood why. Did she remember why, afterward? The way I don't? I wish I did, I think it'd
mean a lot to understand what the clarity meant...why I did what I did. Do what I do. Did she have Janus because he's really real,
or do I have him because I once read she did? Am I making this all up for myself as I go along? Did she?
Did she understand or was she just as scared as I am?
They just dont understand how afraid I am to look at it. Maybe it's just easier to hide in here, where things don't make sense but
don't hurt me either. It's so hard to look, and feel everything they did. It makes that surge, that pressure and then my head starts to
crack, I've been able to hear it, but nobody believes me. I can feel the bones giving way, and I have to do something, I have to let it
out. If there was another way I'd take it, but there isn't. If I don't do something I'm trapped in here with it all. I don't want to
remember.