It's inconceivable why I hold onto some few so long. Most of them are meaningless. Hollow, broken creatures, tragic parasites unable to live by or with themselves. But this serrated knife paws at tissue and memory, unceasing to reason or its compliment. But like any OCD madness, it slows and stops. And once it stops, it will die. Another corpse against the drain in the green grown underground.

But there's something else.

I cycle through every object I own, every situation that's coming up, everything of anything that I can do or did something about. And all of the toys are in their boxes, all of the children are put to bed, and my phone suddenly hasn't cried out in its mid-morning tumult of unnecessity.

There is no reason to this sleeplessness. All the more reason to finally get a perscription sleep aid. I spend enough time already fighting to lose consciousness, to be away from this goddamned incessant perception.

Yet somehow I will make it through another day, and grind myself down just a bit more, where I can drape mats to cover the sharp edges and wrinkled thoughts.

He's been stirring constantly tonight. Woken up 3 times, cried out three times with mad gibberish. Walking children across cross-walks, saying what. I am getting very, very tired of dealing with whatever occasionally fucks with Brian. My patience is thinning. I'm almost tempted to do something regretable to It. I can hear something now even, some strange threshing noise upstairs. What is that sound? What strange malady of the limbs has the marionette maker made of this man, of Brian? It comes down now, turns on lights, then ascends back. Skillfully I am not noticed. These are things that I do.

It's clear to me now. I have waited too long to get rid of this thing, whatever it is.

The same can be said for the other one. But it's already been the better part of a decade. It seems so long ago that I first encountered it. Daniel doesn't even remember. It's better he doesn't. For whatever reason, since that night on the hill, I've been followed. Months or years go by, yet some unknown hands are keeping time. It has been calling more often recently, those baying eyes that shine from the darkness, waiting for me to make an error in judgment, some emotional mistake. It wants revenge, though, for no earthly reason but one that makes sense given the species--so to speak.

I rarely feel tired anymore. That can't and shouldn't be conflated with feeling young. I've blinked and suddenly I've had this journal for almost 6 years. Blinked again and it's been nearly 12 years since I met the acquaintance of the two people I still call family, the brother and sister I never had. And slipping a third time I can move back to my first memory.

I'd gotten out of bed in the middle of the night, an hour much like this. I moved to my parents' bedroom. Something terrified me and I wanted their help or assurance. I tried one, and some muffled answer came. I tried the other, and I was told to go to bed. And so I crept back in the darkness as every nerve seized up. I felt their eyes all around me. I distinctly recall how electrifying cold the sheets felt as I slid into them, how vast and impenetrable the blackness seemed. And I was just laying there, wishing beyond anything that I could make that heavy pressure, that intangibly horrible stalking feeling leave. But it would not. I was 2. Maybe younger.

Nowadays the night is my companion. I wish I could live underground, away from all of this. Sometimes I long for an apocalypse for that very reason. The things I feared now mostly fear me, and with good reason. Yet I'm still awake at the same time.

I should remedy that. I don't like dwelling on these memories.

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