It happened to Lee, too.

I found myself pondering the fate of my soul and

briefly pondered the possibility of redemption. I believe

in universal truth - and what do I know about

redemption?

What have I known that has ever been saved?

Feb. 12 -

Rory laughs at me, I can hear it in the distance. I saw

him at Proud Larry's, locked eyes with him ... and couldn't

do anything. Couldn't tear him down with my blade.

Couldn't even buy him a beer. We locked on to each

other from across the bar, and his eyes told me, "Don't

even tell me you ain't been expectin' me."

Feb. 14 -

Soul match. She looks at me and her eyes are

sunflowers. I can only whisper cause my heart's eaten up

with her. It won't pump blood to the muscles in my

throat that allow me to speak. Won't pump, just stops and

stares. My heart skipping in water like a mudcat. My heart

laid open on a rock and exposing its guts and blood....

She's so much a part of me.

Lines for her:

Bury my head in the sand with the stars streaming down

wet light,

and holding her hand til

it comes crashing into my face -

Throwing myself into a bonfire and flipping into the

brown sea

Water water water to quench the oncoming hell fires.

Feb. 19 -

He can find me, but he's playing games.

The more people who know me, and who gather

together, I start to feel like they've gathered together to tell

me something about myself. Perhaps to tell me what my

life holds in store. To tell me they hate me and that they

will kill me.

Feb. 26 -

Why does she come home like this and do this to my

mind? I get home to no Purity, only Lee sound asleep as

always. Lying in her bed dreaming about herself and her

small life. I am there holding her, forcing myself to

and I hear them come in. She is with someone else. I can

hear them in the next room, moaning and roving around.

It makes me want to break through the wall and strangle

them all, all the horrible lovers who make mad dashes

into hollow passions and who can't eat or breathe anything

truthful or fresh. Just fall on each other and pretend they

can drown their sadness with rivers of sin and lust. Passion

is a privilege, of which they know nothing.

I hate them all.

March 1 -

Finally had a chance to talk to Purity. She's the only

reason I come to Lee's anymore. To torture myself by

seeing her with those beggars. We went outside last night

because the wind was blowing at this brilliant perfect

temperature. We went out and shared a joint. She

opened up to me and told me she was being stalked. Told

me she thought it was me. I told her no way it could be

me. I say it's her who's stalking me. Every day in my

head. At work all day, she's all I think about. At night,

when I'm here and alone, petrified by the sounds she

makes. I said it with guilt, for I knew who it was and

knew that somehow I caused it. It's not Purity he's after.

He will come for her because he is sick and he kills what

would kill me. I couldn't explain it....

She puts on make-up with me and I chase her into the

grass. My arms around her legs, I am loving and tackling

her, kissing her ankles. She cries a shrill note that sounds

like indifferent fear. She wants to die. She wants me to die

inside her.

March 5 -

Haven't seen Purity in several days. I've been asking about

her like crazy. Lee told me to quit asking so much, asked if

I was in love with Purity. I felt like ripping her throat out

with my teeth, like a wolf, a ravenous beast.

March 8 -

I know it was one of the Ego Shovel guys that took Purity

away. When I think of it, makes me want to find a blunt

object and tear off their heads. I want to see their skulls

in halves.

March 15 -

What good's a cheat? Hold yourself to something.

Staple your ass to the ground. Don't go about

packing and whacking.

People have been watching too many movies!

Behavior is a most curious possession. How adaptable

it becomes in the catalytic situations. When someone

you love and respect resists you, it's a sign of bad brain

chemicals triggering, misfiring. Spit and aim, you're off

your rocker!

In other news:

Had the loveliest time with Geena, lying nude across a

pillowy cloud in heaven.

March 18 -

She is out of my reach now, and all I can do is buckle

my knees and float in and out of her world like a pansy

ghost. Like a gothic figure dancing in the shadows of the

midnight moon, pissing down on that place, the farm

where the boys aren't as evil as he who lurks around

them.

Wearing a disguise, I went to their party and was not

interested in their petty wastes - due no doubt to my

anonymity. I was only interested in her, who I followed

to the edge of the woods. She disappeared with someone

who must have been him. He has taken her without force. I

truly do not understand his methods. He is so volatile, I

believe there is no method.

I have so utterly lost literal touch. I have accepted my

fate. I cannot save her. I cannot save myself.

March 19 -

Did she sink with the ship? Did I cast her off to my

own sharks?

March 20 -

I imagine I have saved myself from people who do not

love me. From people who I will hate and kill in my

dreams, if only I can sleep. I can never sleep. Only shiver

and toss and wonder if this the road to death, and whether

or not I have left the earth.

March 21 -

She came to me in a dream and said everything is

okay. She wants to stay with Rory. She's had enough Ego.

She's had enough of making me a degenerate, wandering

back and forth crying across the weeping earth. She's

given me enough head damage, like them all. I was

correct envisioning them against me. The only souls who

want me now are dead. They are calling me from a

heaven that doesn't exist.

March 22 -

She is back with me, finally. After I told her I knew what

those Shovel jerks were saying. All of them are stomach-

burning space-outs. They're doing no good to anyone, or

any living thing. I had to bring her here where it's safe.

We are building shelter.

March 25 -

Behavior, animal behavior. Instinct to kill. Don't run

Purity. I need to keep building this to hold us.

March 28 -

I've been up since noon drinking wine, toasting the Ides

and ideas that have kept me tangled into this world - have

kept me from taking my own life.

Purity and I - we're like soul mates. Put here together, in

two pieces, but one. She doesn't see that yet. The gravity

of her situation. It's in her head and my hands. I can do

something about it for her. Shall she stay or shall we go?

I'll take her away. She can lay down there winking and

crying and crawling all over.

Why did I ever think this? She's here, with me of free will.

We're going to Taylor, tailor it to fit her, this that I am building....

March 29 -4:20 p.m.

Purity was going to leave this weekend. Last night I spent

hours talking her into staying. She was scared and ready to go

when the craziest thing intervened. We saw headlights in the

driveway. We turned off all the lights and hid, the car honked

three times and drove off. It was like the cock crowing.

Tomorrow is Easter. Instead of rising from the dead, we will

join them.

March 31 -

We are all alive and spaced out on mushroom juice and rum.

Hammering and whacking away, I know she will do it. She

has focused her mind on building this incredible thing. I

stand over her like a slave driver. "Build this [expletive

deleted] ship! Build it so we can sink and catch this mad

person who wants to kill us!" She loves it.

April 7 - 1:08 a.m.

I couldn't let her leave. There was no way I could watch her

walk away when Rory could be hiding somewhere nearby, or

Shovels. There are men hiding in the woods all around this

house. I can hear the leaves crunch, can see their squinty eyes.

I hugged her, held her close to me and told her she had to lie

down and hide in the box. I am her protector. I tried and tried

but the screaming and wailing....The horrible reality made me

choke her and slam the door shut. I cried on top of her box.

April 12 -

Saw Lee. Purity is nowhere to be found and her friends are

upset. She's probably off with a best somewhere in the woods

where she belongs. She is one of them now. She has been

altered.

April 14 -

I am home. Purity cries, I cry.

April 19 -

What you mistake for madness is but the over-acuteness of

the senses.

April 25 - 8:32 a.m.

The more she shouts and screams, the longer she'll stay. Since

she couldn't help me, I have to help her. I have to keep her

away from the people who've already tried to murder her spirit.

She loves me, she needs time below to realize this...

May 9 -

Driving back from Taylor a few nights ago, I fell asleep

at the wheel. It was a frightening feeling - my body

giving up control, following its own set of orders. I woke

up jolted, off in a cotton field.

I think it was Geena calling me to come to her. Is she

the devil's agent, luring me back to that madness? Part

of me wants to go to her - the part that knows this is

inevitable. My five-minute future is up-to-date.

Today I went to the grave and whispered to the earth

to bring her back. My angel. My soft dead angel.

May 12 -

More bones to break. People I love keep getting crushed.

Keep crushing my expectations. Purity wanted to leave

me again. She almost did. I had to catch her and show her

how much I wanted to protect her. Pain makes you

beautiful. I kept telling her. She didn't believe me.

May 14 -

My dreams are teleprompters, feeding me the lines of

my life. What sad, ugly jokes they tell.

Things I recall with pained effort. Things better left

locked away, but these dreams, these visions of my fading

future, kept drudging up. Puking my life's awful secrets

onto me, drenching me with regret and sadness.

All the fighting and beating that went on between us. I

remember her as a cherub, until the dreams. Biting and

kicking. I raised my fists and pounded on her just like

Rory pounded on me every day of my life. All the cuts

and scrapes from home, I transferred them to her.

Because any amount of turmoil in me just boiled over,

onto her. She was so sweet and young. Talented and

dangerous. This world would have eaten her in one way

or another. It's best that she died on the wind.

May 18 -

The dream remembers - a stepbrother locked away.

Sent to a holding pen somewhere farfarfar - and never

mentioned. No utterance or sounds. Just heavy

breathing. Waiting, my family was waiting.... I don't

remember them because I never saw them. These days I

think we have forgotten each other. There is so much in

this life that has been forgotten, thankfully. But so much

resurrected in these final days. I hope there is no test at

the end of life, for I will fail. i am failing...

May 21 -

Geena, the police, the coroner, the images, those lies...

I fell asleep in the sand out by the graveyard last night.

I drove to the cemetery to see Geena. I wept for hours on

on her grave. I completely creeped myself out, crawled into

the woods, down the ravine and through the brush, over to

the clearing. It was strong with spirits. The sandstone

rippled by the rain and wind, molded by the earth itself

spinning on it's axis -- the world on a pottery wheel. I

considered it. This is the place. This is where I'll plant her

a seed, one day she will yield so much goodness that could

cure me.

May 25 -

The skies curve inward on me in this dream, and I

think this is the heavens caving in on me, sucking me up.

As I stand here on the corner, I think I see what is going to

happen, but something different happens indeed.

It's Purity. She was killed. I saw it happen. She got

smashed up in traffic and I was nearby pumping gas,

watching the sky flip and fold in. There was a moving

van moving fast, it just hit her. Pow, it was over. Fast

motion and suddenly! - eerie stillness. He pulled out

without permission. Foot on the gas. She hit it and tried

to keep on going but she was going nowhere. She was

stuck in traffic. Stuck to the steering wheel. Shiny

brunette, hair strands capturing glass. Coffee brown eyes

fill up with blood like swimming pools. Her full red lips

and white teeth crushed. Jaw broken, fallen. Such a

beautiful creature, such delicacy. Tamed by speed.

Stop! Sudden strange ending. They pulled me aside

when the police arrived. They asked me questions. What

happened? Did you know her? She was going so fast,

officer. Then her head blew up. Years of evolution

stunted by stupidity, officer. Thank you for sharing this

tragedy with me, officer. Will you arrest me now?

May 28 -

Her funeral. I've managed to suspend it for so long.

Now it has come hobbling back to me. I seemed like a kid.

I couldn't let her go. I was too big of a kid, cause I kept it

so much inside. It erupted in me and spilled into my ears

and my mind. All this pent-up anger and frustration and

sadness welling and fogging up my senses. I had

nosebleeds. The spirits were leaking out of me. I heard

her crying when they lowered the coffin. I tried to rip

open the box and give her all the flowers. Give them to

her and make love in there with her. But the pallbearers

held me back.

We were in love. She's all there ever was or will be.

My life is too incomplete. Faulty and miswired am I, a

soul too wild in the eye to see the calm that must exist -

somewhere soft, this side of the End.

NEVERMORE

June 18 -

I frighten myself when I go back and read these journal

entries. Half of them I don't remember writing. Something

has crept inside my mind and died there.

June 30 -

Rory's threatening suicide all the time. Why won't he

do it and get this over with.

July 2 -

I just slipped into a vision of death. It's like when you

feel you're gonna pass out. It's a rush before your senses

go. Your body is dead but you can still see and hear

everything but can't feel it. It's like floating on your back

in a pool! That's how you go out! That's how you die!

July 4 -

The fireworks today are in our words. There is

constant violence, but not the sort we grew up with. This

violence is through philosophies and mantras.

Arguments and logic. Finally we are speaking to each

other - like vicious human beings.

I let him hide here, but he is not appreciative. He

senses the slightest fears in me, and he acts on them to

sustain his edge. Between two people, the person with

fewer weaknesses is expected to go in for the kill.

Survival of the fittest, but I will not back down in my own

reality.

July 7 -

the world has always been in this falling-apart stage.

i'm ravaging my mind ... make this go away. make him

leave.

July 10 -

He's turned the tables on me. Put the law on my trail.

I'm so out there, they can dig it. Check out Pierce. He

could do it. He's capable.

Goddamn right capable. Let me put a fear in your step.

July 18 -

The stray dogs are howling in my dreams again. They

sound so mad and sick, and I wish I could chase them but

they're too far in the distance. I could chase them for days

and never feel an inch closer. Rory, remember when you

used to torture dogs for sport. Man, I wanted to smash your

brains in. I wanted to stuff you in a rotted tree trunk and

watch the moss grow over your demented little sun-

stained face.

If you come back around, I'll have to protect myself.

You never wanted anything from me except my decency

and sanity.

July 21 -

I'm having more dreams about the future. I'm

dreaming of sabres and cannons pointed at my head.

Lying face down like a snake - and wiggling my way out.

Hail of bullets is what it takes.

August 1 -

Living with it for this long... Every day he made me

hate what I came from. Staring me in the face, like

looking in a mirror.

August 11 -

I like to drive with the windows down so I can get back

to nature. So I can better see what it really means to be a

frail human figure, zooming across the earth at reckless

speeds, in a machine designed by other frail human

figures with minds raised on the sick atrocities of human

life. We're entrusting ourselves to these machines every

day. Zooming all over the world and beyond, creating new

worlds in computer screens. How long before mankind

gives himself to these machines? How long before man

gives himself to his creations?

Thankfully, I won't be around to give myself up.

August 24 -

Every day, I'm more assured of the solidarity between

my reality and my dreams. I feel I am close to stumbling

into a wormhole that will transport me from here to

there, and I will be able to do anything. I will be able to

conquer the world, to conquer God.