The Thirty-Fourth Post

It’s been pretty bad. There was a window of around three weeks things felt pretty good, like they were slowly coming together. Then, two weeks ago, a botched attempt at sex, my cock dead, my libido and sexuality shriveling on the spot, left me feeling shattered, and strangely wanting to die. I’m shattered right now writing this. Is my identity so tied to my sexuality that when the latter broke, so did the former? Is that how it is for all of us, or just some people?

A day or two after it happened, I spoke to a friend who said some very wise and kind things that went a long way towards making me feel better. And for a couple of days it seemed like I was going to just take it a little easier. And then sometime in the middle of the week I woke up  and felt like castrating myself. Not in the form of a fantasy, in the form of thoughts I have to push out of my head. Everyday now. Somewhere in my brain, are images of me chopping my own cock off with a cleaver, slicing it off with a sharp knife (will I piss myself while it happens?), tearing it off in rage. And I am exhausted, broken by them, and they leave me sometimes almost sobbing. Nauseated. Shaking. Weakened. In need of comfort, and afraid to find it. Afraid of people, everyone, myself. Afraid of the harm I might do me.

First came the hair tearing. Then came the visit to my stylist. A costly hair cut would keep the devil away, I reasoned. And it did. For about three days. After which came the incident in the bathroom with a pair of scissors. And another one. And another one. And now my hair is mutilated. I wear it in shame. And each time I look in the mirror I want to just buzz it all off, in spite and anger, but that would be no different than giving myself a bad haircut once again.

But I would look like I had cancer. I could join a support group. “I am Grimaldi, and I have a cancer,” I would say.

“What kind of cancer is it?” they would ask.

And I would look down in shame, and say, “My friends, it is a cancer of the soul.”

The nightmares have come back. Even on a double dose of Seroquel. Last night’s:

I’m in Portland, I’m there to meet a friend I’m attracted to and want to be lovers with. I find myself checking into a large, dirty, completely vacant motel. I have no cell phone reception in my room and even though the place is empty, the air is filled with the din of activity–washers and dryers going apeshit, toilets flushing, and I’m convinced the place is haunted. I open my bathroom and see my shower gushing filthy water and close the door immediately. I find a signal on my phone and am about to ring my friend so she’ll come and pick me up and it’s then when I see him: through the broken glass of my window. I don’t know who he is but he looks right back at me. He looks vaguely like me, but better looking, stronger, dangerous, and I don’t know if he’s my shadow, or the shadow of this place. I run out of my room, down the corridor, and out of the motel property, onto the road outside and see that I’m on a hill. I call my friend. She says she knows the place and will be there soon. I shut my phone off and look behind me at the motel and feel safe for the moment. Then realize my bags, all my shit is back in my room and wonder if I should go back for all of it, which would mean re-experiencing the place, possibly meeting my nemesis, or if I should just fuck it and leave when my friend gets there.

And then I woke up.