Delusional Maniac

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTAL HEALTH, HEAVY TOPICS, SELF-HARM DISCUSSED

 1. Knowing

How do I begin to explain what I think of myself, it would require forever and a couple of days more yes and the whole point is simply that I am what I am and I believe what I believe, that is to say I have false beliefs and logically I am well aware that these are false beliefs however I believe them regardless yes regardless of anything and everything that anyone says to anyone else.

They call them delusions. Delusional maniac, they told me. You can’t really believe what you believe but I do but you can’t but I do, and all I wanted was a fucken pepsi give me a pepsi.

Electric sheep. Guitars. Electric guitars. I am a king.

A kang.

A god.

A gad.

I have the irreplaceable belief that I am destined for greatness. No no, not in the way you’d say to a particularly gifted person. You see, I am not particularly gifted, or imparticularly (particle?) impractically. Practically, I am not gifted at all. No gifts here, none. No cash or gift vouchers either.

Gift. Magi. Maggi. Hungry.

Four words or paragraphs? Who knows, not me. I never lost control.

Back to gifted.

You see, they keep telling me I have delusions of grandeur. Like Nietzsche, who thought he was Napoleon. He also thought God was dead. But that is true. I am a god. I am also dead.

Won’t find it strange if I told you so.

I told you so.

They tell me I believe things. But they believe I believe.

What I know is that I know. They only believe. But I know.

 

2. Sleeping

Intrusive thoughts.

That’s what they call them.

I call them delightful notions.

They keep telling me, they’ve been telling me for years and years watch your weight its dangerously low you’re not you anymore I was never me I don’t know what they’re talking about, but they keep saying this and I ask them not to but they don’t listen.

They say I think too much. I don’t but they say I do. Maybe I do, but I don’t, you know.

I see things in my sleep, not in my sleep, in that middle ground between sleep and death, you know. I am fully awake though, now and ever. I think I haven’t slept in a very long time although it could very well have been just a couple of days. No way to know. No. Know.

I remember this song by Suicidal Tendencies where that guy gets thrown in an asylum for asking for that commodity, I forget which, the one with the fizz, you know what I mean. But that song is pretty much what I think quite often, as I listen to sixteen minute guitar noodlings following some random trippy music you know.

I keep thinking of what could be if I was unleashed, if I was allowed to be me. I play scenarios in my head I think of myself a king a god a leader a genius a maniac a noodler noodling you know how noodlers noodle just like one of those noodlers noodling.

Noodle.

Funny word.

Can’t sleep. Must stop thinking, thunk he. Thot. Vhot.

Mind drifting off to sleep now. Noa. Noah. Shoah.

The arc. An ark. Arkansas. Fiddler’s belly, eleventeen, Lord of the rings, I have to finish that video essay, essaymblay, ethan tremblay. Because he couldn’t be hunt. Hunt wasn’t Hollywood enough.

The king of Hollywood, a king in general, general at the battlefield, winner of general elections. Connections deceptions.

Deceptive connections.

I survey the battlefield. I am god. They must bow. Xerxes. He was kind. Kingly kindness. Large man. I am not large, but neither was Napoleon.

I could sweep the world off of its illnesses if you let me.

If only you let me sleep.

 

3. Walking

Walk on home boy, he said, the bald man at that moshpit for that one band that was supposed to save heavy metal, the one about that one big cat, you know, like they have in Africa, not Toto, that’s some other song. Pantera. That’s the one.

I walk. I often walk for a while for the pleasure of walking. I know many people do, it’s nothing unique. There is nothing unique about walking, except when I do it there is. The walking here is a different walking. It is a droning. A zombieing. A raging. A seething, a fleeting seething even, who knows.

I walk to feel. You walk to walk.

The walk itself is a, how shall I put it, oh look a car.

A bus.

A flyover.

Under the flyover now. Rows of houses, shops, who comes to shop under a flyover? Imagine texting your friend hey let’s hangout under the flyover, shop for clothes. Poor sods. No customers.

Zero customers. Not their fault.

I don’t feel unsafe. They can’t kill me, I am already dead.

Poor sods.

I often have out-of-body experiences while walking. I live for those moments. No weed for me no sir, no drugs nothing. I am clean. The drugs are in my brain, weed was planted through my ear into my mind when I was very small. LSD is processed in a little laboratory in my frontal lobe. I am forever high. I often slip away, slip out, slip in, even, slipper away, flip flops, I do. Oh dear I just did it again.

I was saying, what was I saying? Walking.

OBEs.

I walk around, seeing the things around me. Something something phenomenology. What does it feel to feel, feel to be, what is to be? To be or not to be? Do be do be. It do be like that.

Who is what.

That is phenomenology. Devdutt told me once, he said he read 800 pages a day every day of phenomenology. I calculated it and realized it was an impossibility. He must be doing speed to be reading so much all the time.

I walk more.

Walking frees the mind, lets your mind run as much as possible. I am walking, the physical action of moving my legs propelling me forward gives me the droning I need to have one foot in this world and the other in the other reality in my head, you know.

I am free to live when I walk. When I cook. When I work. Clacking away at the keyboard. Clickety clack. Cliques at school. Quacks at the mall.

One quack behind me.

In another reality, the quack has a knife. A rough kind of human being, a rough kind of knife. Quack waits till I am ahead of him, and then stabs my jugular.

Sorry, I text my supervisor. Can’t make it, have been stabbed.

Can you make it by evening?

Have been stabbed.

Ok.

You know?

In that other reality I am dead, but this quack has no knife.

It doesn’t matter I am already dead.

Walk.

 

4. Eating

I don’t really need food, no. I am already down to one meal a day of some samosas and maggi. I don’t need to waste money on food. Why should I waste something so common on something so unnecessary.

I can quickly go down to one meal in two days. The thing is, I really enjoy these diversions of the mind, and I used to figure they only came with intoxicants, but they have been coming since I was a child. I used to think it was me getting winded or getting inspired or not having my meds.

But it was my brain growing tentacles trying to escape the confines of my skull. I don’t have a skull now, I didn’t enjoy how uncomfortable I felt in that bony cage. Cage? Box? I don’t know. I took it off for a while, you know. Cut my hair. Felt lighter. I do feel a lot lighter.

Anyone has a light? Might go for a smoke.

Smokes always bring that brain diversion, you know. Delusion you might call it, but it’s true. I can feel my tentacles sharpen when I spoke. Each drag.

But I don’t waste money on tobacco anymore. I can will myself to delude nowadays, it is completely different now that I figured I don’t need food.

You see, the food was stopping me from living and being free you see. I hate food now. Coupla days back. Ate at bar. Drunk loads. Split bill. He ate more though.

I don’t like food.

 

5. Seeing

They are nicest. I know this. Objectively, logically. But they hate me. My brain sees it. The tentacles click in and out and extract all the thoughts in their head the repressed ones the oppressed ones the suppressed ones the patriarchal ones the casteist ones every one of them.

I can read minds. I can think thoughts. I know they don’t like me because I ate all their food and drank all their wine.

They are the nicest people why do I do this.

I should bring them some compensation.

If I were a cat I could have brought them a dead mouse and they’d google what that meant and go on reddit and find out I liked them and wanted them to be well fed.

They want me to be well fed but they don’t know that I don’t require food. You see I don’t really exist, I don’t know if I told you this before, it’s been this sneaking feeling that has been creeping up to me until I caught it right on my back once.

Once I slept at a friend’s house I caught them stealing my wallet but I wasn’t they said I said you were they said I was slipping a note in your pocket but why the fuck would you slip a note in my pocket while I was sleeping you’re stealing my wallet go ahead and take it anyway because I don’t need food you know, anyway what was I saying.

The feeling yes, so they don’t like me big deal but it is a big deal but its not you know, they are the nicest but they are not them someone else has come and now they are someone else you know, identical twin alien like that alien film what is it called Fregoli Caprigras Mardigras? I don’t know but that’s what it is what was the name of the film who the fuck knows something something where that guy in the end with the moustache screams at that woman and points a finger he goes eekehfeheih no that’s what my bisexual friend says when they’re excited they go skawrhjwqeghd it’s a keyboard smash but that was more of a guttural piercing, guttural is not the right word, but piercing is, it’s a piercing scream that man went KRRRREEEEEEE that’s more like it, you know written language is woefully inadequate it doesn’t attack you the way sound does the way other visuals do it is a carefully constructed cacophony of nonsense designed to stop you to slow you down before you really think you know what I mean I don’t know what I mean what I mean is simply that they hate me they are not them someone has stolen them and replaced them with eyes that judge you know like a third eye, you know what I mean?

All their eyes do is see.

 

6. Hearing

But my eyes don’t see, my eyes hear. I hear with my eyes. Don’t laugh its not a joke its rather common. Many people hear. The blind hear, how do you suppose they do that checkmate atheist god you’re so stupid.

I walk a lot, sure, I have earphones on so how do I still hear what everyone around me is telling me. Crank the volume button, try getting guitar noodling to drown out whatever you’re hearing but it doesn’t stop, hear me they say my precious Lord of the Rings gotta finish that video essay essaystentialist. Frankenweenie. Gotta finish that draft.

Every voice tells me this. I can hear thoughts. No I can hear people when they don’t move their mouths. Is that their thoughts? No people don’t think. If they did I could hear them. Only I think, it’s all in my hear, my head, it’s all thoughts, my thoughts, I am everyone, everyone is one consciousness, my consciousness I could be in some asylum dreaming this entire scenario right now like a brain in a vat or an evil demon Descartes before the horse power ranger forest Betsie deth metallica.

Who?

No not their thoughts, it’s ventriloquism. Everyone knows ventriloquism, they’ve all banded together, it’s a trick. They’re testing me. They want me to go mad, or think I went mad, but joke’s on them I am not even alive, poor sods.

No alms for the poor. No customers. Zero.

Is she filming me? What is she filming? She must be a reality TV director. I wonder if I did something right, why don’t they ask for permission, poor sods, yes I am the emperor don’t film me or I will say off with your head like that one lady on that one film what was the film Alice it’s called in Wonderland but it’s not Alice in Wonderland it’s Johnny Depp being Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter with a big head and a small body very funny lol laughs everywhere who are you? I am me.

Ventriloquism.

The truth is that they’re watching me, but I can hear them.

Poor sods.

 

7. Cutting

When I didn’t enjoy my brain divergences I found a nifty little trick. I found that these divergences exist inside my blood, they flow out from the drugs in my brain and mix in with the blood flow. But they are very fast they want to rush out super quickly, and so if blood were allowed to drain out they’d be the first to drain out that’s the truth yessir it is.

And therefore, I used to use needles and saws and old rough rusted blades and knives to get rid of the brain divergences, I would cut myself and feel, if the right world is, earthed yes that was a James Joyce reference sue me, you can’t sue a dead man you idiots.

I used to cut myself to my eternal shame because I was scared of my brain divergences, but when I started enjoying them they became more frequent I don’t need food perhaps I can experiment with no water too it’s like that film I will make about that short story by Kafka you know The Hunger Artist, see I didn’t need to forget that. But that is a different short story than me it’s not my story it’s Kafka’s you know he was never on the shore he was always in deep water trying not to die, one of them told me about Kafka on the shore the other day interesting man I don’t know what he said though I forgot very kind man very kind, but he is not him he is someone else what did I say?

Yes I would paint myself and tattoo myself I would do the best I could with that but then the frequency of those divergences increased I don’t need food and the cutting make it nicer and I learnt to go with the flow instead of crying like a dumbass you’re an emperor you don’t need to cry you fucking wanker.

Drench. Water? No. No way to tell, I’m wearing a black shirt. It’s not water. They don’t know why I went up everyone discussed but no one knew. I knew.

It is time they knew what I already know.

 

8. Dyeing

They don’t believe me No one believes me I don’t tell them I have told no one They already don’t believe me, I can hear them you see I know I am dead I was always dead, I was stillborn, my voice didn’t work, my body didn’t work The person who cried, who moved, when I was born was someone else I remember my birth, no one remembers, but I do, because I was born dead I didn’t move at all I have memory of stillbirth from the third person’s perspective, you know, like you’d see a film, or a show, or a re-enactment, or a play, but remember it wasn’t me, I was trying to scream out to my mother that this is someone else it isn’t me but my mother didn’t listen to me or didn’t believe me she probably couldn’t hear me because my voice wasn’t working this other child had taken over my voice box and for years and years and years he has been pretending to be me while this entire time I have simply been dead because I was never born this is what I’m trying to tell everyone you must rescue your emperor you idiot dummies I can see the hands of the ventriloquist who is working you all for my amusement I am the ventriloquist I ventriloquise you fools I was never here in the first place.

Death doesn’t frighten me. Food does.