Oh. Captain.

My demons are smarter than I am. 

They have the ability to adapt, something that took me years to figure out. Just when I think I get a handle on them, they get a handle on me. And then I get a handle of Captain Morgan. And I should know better than to try to battle my own demons while drinking.

Sometimes being me makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Insecurity is the worst of the monsters I know. Next to politicians and rapists. I consider self-loathing and -depreciation to be more fleeting; triggered by a moment or feeling that can easily be glossed over by any number of pharmaceutical or recreational distractions. 

I prefer hiking. On Xanax.

I can momentarily be dissuaded from hating myself with cookies or booze, a great book, music, a well-made wizard robe, or a good hat. Six to nine beers and a few shots and I'll show you the floppy titties. Take me to see live music and I'll sing louder than all of the assholes next to me. Sometimes a dick in the mouth will even stop me from insulting my own personality. (Sometimes.) Let me throw on some Gryffindor gear and I'll woo you with my magical fucking personality.
But I know insecurity never really leaves. 

Insecurity is my imaginary friend.
Insecurity makes me wonder how fat I'll get when I eat twenty-two cookies. Insecurity gives my beer all the head. (Insecurity gives a lot of head.). Insecurity reminds me that I'll never be a real wizard. Insecurity makes me hide in the shower to dance. Insecurity thinks she can drink Captain Morgan. Insecurity fuels my crippling addiction to buying hats to hide the enormity of my forehead.
Insecurity does the dumb shit.

Insecurity can't associate names with certain dicks anymore. Insecurity married the same guy twice. Insecurity just opened her third fourth fifth beer on a Tuesday afternoon. Insecurity can't let you in. Insecurity stopped writing when things got hard to read. Insecurity does shots. Insecurity doesn't sing out loud when the house lights are up. Insecurity always fucking ends up being a side-chick.

I was made to believe that middle age me would have my shit more together than this. 

When I was younger I never noticed paralyzing uncertainty in the people I felt to be in charge. The late 30's appeared to my decades-younger eyes as an assemblage of confident people in tennis shoes spending weekends building stone paths to the shed. Inviting the neighbors over to witness the marvel of sound coming from speakers disguised as rocks; their polo-collared chins bobbing in unison as they agree on the craftsmanship of the newly prefabbed cabinet that housed the margarita machine. What my not-yet-developed eyes failed to see was that behind the shed doors was the stash of liquor bottles and rolling papers that prompted doing manual labor for three early morning hours on a Saturday. 

I've long since learned that the best thing about having chores as an adult is that you can drink beer while doing them.

This coping to feel good enough thing isn't going to go away, is it?

Hell, I give everything I do 150%. 

Failures and all.

I guess it stands to reason that the loads I allow to drag me down are going to bear the weight of a thousand bullshit metaphors. 

Blah, blah, blah,
concubines on my soul.

I haven't slept well since 1984. 

The album by Van Halen. 

I've never physically slept well. 

I find it hard to fall into a slumber, which is a nice way to say my brain never shuts the fuck up. They say I used to talk to people while I was sleepwalking. I have no recollection, because fuck memories, but I want to say it was between the ages of seven and nine? On multiple occasions I could be found sleeping on a neighbor's porch after wandering over to coma-chat in the middle of the night. Mom got tired of running me down and used to hold me to the couch for the first half of the night. I remember that, because I'd wake to be comforted by the dulcet monotone of Data explaining human emotion. Mom loved Next Generation. Which sort of explains my tendency to engage in irrational behavior that only stands to destroy my operating system; it could be that my programming may be inadequate to the task of sustaining functional relationships with anyone that understands my true worth.

For so long I've been saying that "tomorrow will be better" that now it feels like I'm chasing the clock. Pushing one foot down onto the hour hand and stacking a case of beer on the other. Getting through the day and doing what I can to just maybe finally fucking sleep, so that I can get up for work because perhaps tomorrow will be better. 

Like Jean-Luc Picard, I wait for the dawn.

The problem is that I get up a lot earlier than dawn. So I basically have, like, a good six or so hours of waiting. And most of the time I can tell if the day is going to be shit before the sun even comes up. How in the hell am I supposed to believe that tomorrow is going to be better if today is fucked before it even begins? I'm already a day and a half behind the promise of tomorrow before yesterday really ends. 

What if I'm okay with never feeling good enough, is there some kind of complacent compromise that the demons and I can come to? If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are.

Insecurity stands in the rain quoting Star Trek at the sky because she drank too much rum.

Hello. 

Trees.

I am your Captain.