Uso dayo!

Or... I guess that's kind of a lie. It's more like... I don't know where to start with everything I want to talk about.

It's hard to really put things into words a lot of the time. I'm so used to not saying anything, or not being listened to, and now that it's changed I'm like a leaky faucet and just can't stop. I don't know where to put it all, or how to approach it, because after a single day of it I already feel disgusting. A nuisance. A burden. A downer.

So maybe I should just keep talking to myself here.

I want to still talk about things here. Some will and some won't be put in the Access List. I don't want to keep all personal posts behind the Access List, especially now that they're allowed to subscribe to this account. That feels... cruel. And pointless. Besides, I want to maybe expand things a little. Use this for other things. What things? I'm not really sure yet, because I still have... a lot of messy emotions to untangle and get out first.

I don't know how or even want to explain the nuances, so I won't, but there won't be Shiro-flavored posts for a while. The way I set things up here, I want to keep things as vague as possible. It's my own little lying game. People can make whatever they want of the dichotomy. It's an Ouma thing for me as much as a safety thing to keep it a secret.

But maybe that's a lie. It's not like anyone reads these.

I have one subscriber that's not them, but I understand if the content here is a little too out there to interact with. I guess I'm just lonely. I don't know. Things were better yesterday, but now they've gotten bad again. Not because of anything in particular, though. It's more like... It felt like things were changing too quickly, and I didn't get a chance to properly feel and appreciate the bad feelings. I know there are a lot, and it's hard to keep track of all of them, and I know that if things look up too quickly, they will fall to the wayside and fester.

I feel like there are two modes to Ouma: he either says nothing about his feelings and takes them to his grave or spills his guts all over anyone who will listen. I'm a lot like that. For a very long time, I operated by default on the former, but now it feels like I was forcibly pushed to the latter. Honestly, I'm grateful for it, but I'm so, so scared of falling back into old habits. I don't want anything to go unacknowledged, so I've just been venting and venting and venting in personal spaces with friends and I imagine it's started to get tiring for them. Especially when the feelings are so visceral and nebulous that I don't even really know what I'm talking about most of the time. I'm just vomiting whatever these feelings are into the text box and trying to make sense of them so I can appreciate and understand them even just a little more.

So others can appreciate and understand them just a little more.

But doing that kind of makes me kind of a drag to be around, doesn't it? I talk about them, and then at some point it feels like the conversation should be over, but I want it to keep going. I don't want it to end. I want to keep feeling. I want to keep being listened to. I want to cry. I think that's something I really miss a lot. Crying.

I don't really know where I'm even going with this anymore. I've said a lot of this already to friends. I don't know why I'm saying it all again for a post on a Dreamwidth account that nobody pays attention to. It feels... performative? Like my friends weren't enough so now I'm out here being a dirty attention whore about it. Which isn't what I'm trying to do... At least, I don't think it is...? I just... feel a lot.

I'm tired of feeling. But I'm more tired of not feeling.

I want to feel in a way where I can finally find a way to let them rest. So I can feel better without being scared that it invalidates all those bad feelings. I want to feel in a way that feels real. Does that make sense?

Like... I'm upset almost all the time. That's my baseline, I think. But then I'll see a joke or someone will do something funny and I laugh on reflex. It gives me this ache in my chest like「What was that? I thought you were upset.」It feels like a betrayal of my feelings to laugh so easily when I can't even cry. I don't know what to do about it other than drown myself in things that make me upset and think about things that make me upset and wallow in all of the ennui, but then there's nowhere for those feelings to go and so they settle into white noise until something suddenly makes me laugh again and you get the idea.

I wouldn't call it anti-recovery, but I don't like the sentiment of「It will get better. This bad feeling won't last forever.」It's not that I don't ever want to feel better. I do want to feel better one day, but I don't want to right now. Maybe I want the bad feeling to last forever, just for a little bit. I want people to see and to know and to understand and appreciate it with me. Not in the sense that I'm vying for pity, but... I don't really know. Something to escape this lonely feeling I have in feeling this way.

I want people to know what my deal is. I want people to want to know what my deal is, so that I don't feel like a parasite rehashing the same thing over and over to any schmuck unfortunate enough to be in the same room as me. It's tiring. It's lonely. I don't know what will make it better because talking about it unprompted feels like I'm whining for attention. A disingenuous cry for sympathy or something.

And yet, here I am.

I guess the other part is I'm just rambling to make sense of my own thoughts and feelings. I feel a lot through music, so I'll just pick a song that fits the vibe I want to examine and put it on loop while I talk or write about things like this to navigate things just a little easier. That's why I always go out of my way to put links in my「Listening」for... I guess myself more than anything. So I can quickly get back to it when I'm reexamining old posts. I do that with fics, too. Since Ouma is an identity to me, I wanted to utilize him as a vessel for my ennui. That's where「He stared at the ceiling.」and「There was... somebody here.」came from.

That's on AO3 now, by the way, as「Who is Under the Hydraulic Press?」, which might have more installments. I don't know. Quick sidebar for a shameless plug in the middle of my ennuiposting. Why not.

Actually, this has gotten really long, hasn't it? I don't even know where else to go. Any connecting thoughts I had have dried up. I just know that I'm still upset and I want to get it down. Solidified in some way before I lose it. It seems at this point I've already lost it, though. Sad.

Maybe a random derail, then, into regression. I'd been small before, especially the past couple weeks, but it's... strange to me. It's one of those things that I get this achy longing for, but there's a listless feeling of... artificiality to it now. That's the wrong word. I don't know what the right word is. I guess it's like, I only seem to be able to really tap into and feel it when I'm really, truly, viscerally upset.

And that's kind of the upset I've been chasing.

Because right now, it's that white noise kind of upset that doesn't feel real. There's this disconnect that I can't seem to breach. I'm too dissociated from my own feelings to really get much out of them, and I don't like it. I'm just upset. I want to cry. I want... things I can't ever seem to have. Things I can't articulate, because while I want to try to have them, some part of me seems to have accepted that I shouldn't, and so it's keeping them from me. Out of sight out of mind. It's always out of sight out of mind.

I'm just a「lie」that makes up「me」, or some such nonsense like that.

He did that a lot these days, just staring at the ceiling. Was it the ceiling? It was hard to think, with the haze constantly clouding his mind. Death had not been kind to him. He was tired. Going anywhere would take great effort—his lungs constricted in a vice and his muscles fatigued and lethargic from the poison that coursed through his body, persistent aches radiating through every bone in his body as they'd slowly been crushed into splinters.

No, it was easier just to stay down, and so he laid there on his back, staring at the ceiling, contemplating his situation.

He couldn't tell where he was. He didn't really care much, when he thought about it. To find out would mean to get up, and to get up would mean to fight the ache in his chest and bones and soul. Wherever it was, it was quiet. So very quiet. Not a breath of life anywhere. Not even from him.

There was nobody here.

Where had he come from, then? That thought was a little more enticing. He spent a lot more time thinking about that than anything else. The others. They were doing well, he hoped. It was the only thing he could bring himself to hope. Obviously, there was no way to know.

There was nobody here.

He was alone, and he always would be.

Would he be happy, knowing that? Did he mean it when he'd said it?

His finger stung for no apparent reason.

It's not like it really mattered anymore. Not now.

The floor was cold—was it the floor?—but then again, everything was cold. It was the kind of cold that seeped into his already aching bones and chilled his very core in a way that would have made him tremble if he could. There was a coat or something beneath him, a layer of fabric that should have protected his bare back from the icy metal beneath it. With the chill that wracked his body, it decidedly did not.

The ceiling was shiny—was it the ceiling?—and reflected his miserable body back at him. Pasty-white, drained of life and blood, dead eyes that barely acknowledged themselves staring back. The coat splayed out from beneath him like starry angel's wings, streaked with his own poisoned blood.

Except there was no body there. That was the whole point, wasn't it?

He closed his eyes. He didn't like thinking about where he was. He decided to lie that he didn't know until he conveniently forgot again.

Where must the others be, if he was here alone? Somewhere better? That would be nice. There was no way to know the truth, so why not cook up a kinder lie?

He was in space somewhere, exploring the farthest reaches of the stars and universe the way he always wanted without the inhibitions of mortality holding him back. He was in a sunny clearing in a forest, free from the scrutiny of his peers, with every bug he could imagine there to care for and to study. She was in a well-stocked lab with all the tools and supplies and ideas she could ever want, with no need for food or sleep to hold her back anymore. He was watching over his sisters in a world that was always changing, never boring and always intriguing, where he would never run out of places to explore.

She was following along behind the person she loved, watching over her and protecting her. She was with the god she'd revered so much. He was reunited with his sister. She was free from her duties and expectations, finally released to see to her own needs. He was at peace with his lost loved one. She was watching over him and everyone, friends forever.

And he...

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

He was here.

The ceiling stared back, unmoved.

There was nobody here.

His soul ached.

There was no body here.

He closed his eyes again.

He was tired. Maybe he should just sleep. Rest and let eternity pass him by all on its own. The lies were too much, with no one to share them with. He would be alone either way, and thinking was getting too difficult to be worth the trouble.

Maybe after some time, he will be able to muster the energy to turn his head, and see the light pouring in through the open hangar door.

But for now, he wanted to sleep in his cruel lie.