A Solitary Life

I don't know if it dawned on me until just now. I know the fear is there,has been there, and will remain until I die-it might even continue on with my soul into the unknown reaches of infinity when I blessedly am derailed from this mortal coil after I have heard and seen everything. Floating out in the ether somewhere passing a bottle around with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison one of them might look at me and see that look in my eyes that only someone with The Sickness has.
This is no romanticized version of tortured artistdom. This is fear, and misery, and laying drunk in the bathroom doorway, and slamming your fist into the wall because it just doesn't work. The universe refuses to come together. People refuse to make sense. No one understands what you're saying even though it makes perfect sense and you know it does.
I'm not babbling, I'm just not like you.

It's 4:30 in the morning and I have no one to talk to-at least no one coherent who can understand what I'm saying. Not because I'm smarter, just different.
I could have committed what Colin Wilson referred to as "intellectual suicide" in his book "the Outsider" years ago. I could have at least tried to make the choice to become like everyone else. To some degree I have,but in a positive way. I have become less cynical, more open to what I perceive in people to be "faults".
But in the end, it is my nature to be up this late writing, or playing music, and I have grown accustomed to the solitary nature of my existence.
But the fear is still there.
What if I never find anybody-at all. What if nobody ever loves me for me. What if I'm just impossible to deal with or understand. There is no way to really tell. A miracle might happen 10 minutes from now and an angel might fall out of the sky into my arms and I'd be in love for ever. Maybe my gift for self expression might suddenly blossom to the point that I can make the world understand things in a way it never has before.
The words "maybe", and "what if" kept my brains fully intact, inside a skull that was never penetrated by a bullet back when things were at their very worst. Those words keep me getting out of bed every day. They keep me going to work. They keep my eyes open. They keep me from slapping people all the time. They keep gamblers gambling and junkies chasing their best high.