Message from a Fading Star

Tell me. Tell me what to say. Tell me what to feel. Tell me how to rearrange all the words in the English language to throw your world into chaos. Tell me what you want me to do, then tell me what I want to hear. Tell me you’ll always need me; you can never live without me. Tell me I am such an important part of your life, that my absence makes life lose its very worth. Tell me I can make someone feel that way. I’ve shouted it to myself at the top of my lungs, to no avail. Tell me how I can make you fall for me, then fall.

I am the farthest star in your night sky. You see me, and even gaze in amazement at times, but you will never be able to reach me. I am nothing more than a ball of swirling madness, absolute madness, light years away, and no matter how amazing I may be, you will always be content with glancing up every now and then just to make sure I’m still there.

What if I weren’t? What if my light runs out? What if I collapse from within? Will you notice? Will you miss one inconsequential speck of light in your life? Will it break you down, tear you up, turn your whole world on its side? Have I done enough to make you even think of me when you aren’t staring right at me?

Tell me I am more than inconsequential. Tell me I am the last thing you want to wish upon every night, then make your wish. Tell me you love me. Then tell me again. And again. And again.

Then tell me you finally mean it.

Unintentional Craziness. Maybe.

I can’t for the life of me think of what to write. I’m sitting here with my finger firmly on the backspace key, shaking my head at everything that comes out of it. The world blows by us, faster each day. Millions of sounds, thoughts, pictures, feelings, and I can’t find one to write about. Which ironically enough brings me to write this. Apologies for the cliché, but what is this? Ramblings of a mad man, and leading to what end? We read thousands of things every day; meaningless, mindless drivel, everything that will never move your soul or pluck a heartstring. I don’t want to be one of those; I will not be content with one in a million. You should come here to feel somethi-no. No. I should come here to feel something, and I do. It’s right here in front of you. You should come here to feel it with me. This right here is my biggest fear and maybe, probably my best talent. But for it to mean something, anything at all, it must truly come from within me. I came to an agreement with myself that if I did this, I was doing it. Matthew Richard Brock means something different to you than it does to me. But if I can make you feel what I feel, if I can move you just an inch, light one candle within you, then maybe we can start to see the same person. Maybe I’ll be able to smile about him more often. Maybe one day, the world will be reading this. Imagine how much more light would be in the world with so many candles…..

I love to write only because you read. If that means I fail out of the gate as a writer, so be it. But I do this to see your reaction, to see that whatever I was feeling in that moment has resonated with you. If it doesn’t, if empathy escapes you, then there was no point, and then I have truly failed as a writer. That will be the last time I ever write. Until then, enjoy the ramblings of a mad man who still can’t think of what to write. (And who can’t keep his finger from laying on that backspa

Dream

And so it ends. The wave of a hand, the wrench of a heart. Goodbye’s inevitability makes it no easier to endure. It can bring with it the worst of empty feelings, the knowledge that you once had everything you could dream of, but couldn’t grasp it firmly enough. Everything will change, time will tick, but you will never forget that time and place, or that look in his eyes, and the way the moon lit them on fire. Yet for your sake, he can be nothing more than a memory, an irreplaceable and inexplicable pain that shoots straight through everything you are. And if you let it, that pain will leave you dreaming of the life you could have had, instead of making the one you already have better.

I have been dreaming for far too long. I have been wishing, praying for some semblance of myself to reappear, while simultaneously knowing that I am no longer that man. I have been torn down. Stripped. Burned. I have been reminded how stacked the deck is against me, how low I am and how much further I can still fall. He made me feel greater than anything in this life. He smiled and the world fell to its knees. He was everything I needed, the only thing I needed. But I couldn’t hold on to him, and in a flash and a bang, he was light-years away, and I was broken. I was broken, and worse, I was content. Life wasn’t good enough, but it wasn’t going to get better.

Then I picked up the pencil, and it all came flooding back…

That time, that place. Those eyes…the pain, joy, every heartbreak and miracle in between. It hit me like a gust of wind you could not imagine. All the worst pains in my life, punching me in the gut all at once. But I was alive. I cried, for a long time, as I wrote whatever my head could muster. I lived through it one more time, so that he and that life could never haunt me again. I’m tired of being broken. I’m tired of living within my fears. I’m tired of waking up and dreading the day. I am simply tired. For years I have been shattered, but these words feel like the first steps toward being whole again, stronger than I was before. Maybe these words are just what I need to finally wake up, once and for all, and see the life I have is better than any life I could possibly dream of.

 

And so it begins.

Let’s give this a shot…

Well. Hello world. It’s been a while. This blog was going to be the thing that…I don’t know, kickstarted my sportswriting career? That never quite panned out. I’ve ventured pretty far from my writing days…until recently. But I think I’m something better than terrible at writing, and it doesn’t hurt, at least not yet. Putting what’s in my head on a web blog for the world to see is a little daunting, as I have not yet gotten over the fear of what everyone else thinks…I want you to like what you read here. But I can’t write differently because of that. If this is my best shot at letting the world see me, then I’d be a fool to not take it, especially out of fear. So here goes.