...even through the darkest phase...

...someone marches brave here beneath my skin...
...has always been...

I told a very good friend this weekend that sometimes I am afraid that the things people like best about me are the things I hate the most, are the things related to mania and are therefore more than just a little self-destructive and ridiculous. It's the truth; but I won't look close enough to figure out which is what, mainly because it's too scary to think that were I finally to understand those things and manage them, "control" them as it were, then I wouldn't be nearly as approachable, or friends might find me less comforting or understandable...

...on the other hand, my solitude would increase, and the balm that is to my soul would be indescribable...of course, until the loneliness became too great, and I made another stupid mistake in pursuit of trying to relieve that great and ignorant loneliness. It knows itself not well enough and blinds the heart to intelligence and reliability, to endurance and discernment. Sometimes - not all the time, and not in all people, and not in all ways - but sometimes, loneliness is a slut, empty and hungry and forever looking for fulfillment in others, the very place it is least likely to find relief...

This morning the bottom has fallen out of the sky, and it's raining; the lightning and thunder tormented the cats all night long, which in turn kept us up most of the night. Even the sleeping pill was helpless in the face of natural histrionics and distressed cats. It shouldn't have been; it's a hypnotic, for God's sake: WORK. Otherwise, my secret: sleeplessnes: will increase, will stretch and consume me, and the madness, which seems so close lately, will win. I am not interested madness except in a manic sense, or a distant, untouchably cosmic and universal sense - the intuitive language of the oracle, or the blood-wired wisdom of time older than we know. Madness at the individual, human level is a dark and terrible thing which I have seen before and am uninterested in again...

...but it hums against my brain, hums against my heart, and whispers its proximity, threatens and cajoles, telling me all manner of things, some of which are no doubt lies, some of which are not doubt truth. It's hard to tell....

...Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth...