There is little that can be worse than needing so much and being able to offer so little.
To be utterly unneeded.
Those who would chart my course or point out the logical courses I should take tell me my daughter needs me but even this isn't true. She has another man in her life, her mother has replaced me and they are so far away there is nothing I can do about it.
And should I do anything about it? He seems to be good for them both, better than I ever could be.
What can a shadow do really? What can the invisible do to have any good affect on anyone's lives?
Ocean take me because no one else should have to suffer my existance.

How does one compete with a ghost?
You told me that I cannot be him and will never be him.
That he is the only one who owns your very soul and heart.
But he has let you go, cut you away and thrown you away.
Still he haunts you.

How does one compete with a ghost?
I told you that you are not her and will never be her.
That she is the only one who owns my very soul and my heart
Yes, she may continuously let me go, cut me out, throw me away.
But she will forever haunt me.

I don't dream. Or, if I do, I never remember the dreams I have. I had something that happened to me when I was very, very young and it could be the key to my dreamless sleep but I don't press my mind too hard in that direction.
A good friend once told me that is good and that I shouldn't force memories that are that traumatic. And yet there is the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in me that despises an unsolved mystery.
But there is nothing for it except, perhaps, overpriced therapy that I can neither afford or really bring myself to want. I have trouble enough sharing my head with myself so why would I pay someone else to join that party?
At any rate, it is a battle that has been going on for years, even more years than I knew evidently, and if I am meant to remember anything then I will if not then my brain will take the secret to its grave.

Lately there have been some more pleasant glimpses but, as always, something darker chases them away and makes me shut down in my sleep again. A few very nice pictures of someone I care about or something I want to do and then a really bad...something, just a feeling that I had a nightmare but can't quite touch what it was. Then dreamless nights again.

There's probably an interesting psychological explanation too, but I can't really bring myself to study it too much. Someone once told me I wasn't in touch with reality and I responded with "No, I'm painfully aware of reality, I simply prefer not to live there". Which is a pretty offhanded and flippant way to explain my disassociation I suppose but there it is.

I barely dare to dream anything good while awake why should sleep be any different?

"Grow Up"
It is always what I received from a loving enough father when I would cry. I cam from a family where men don't cry, where feeling hurt and just wearing a stone face through it all proves you have passed from boyhood into manhood.
I've had women in my life evidently from the same culture which made me feel the need to be strong even when I was oh, so weak.
In my more recent years, this has, of course, come to harm my relationships. In my most recent "adventures of the heart" not being able to cry when I was hurting was seen as the real weakness. I have no doubt it was one of the nails in the proverbial coffin of our relationship.
My best friend/whatever we are has taken me to that threshold. Is this a good thing? It just feels vulnerable to me, leaves me raw. She says its progress I say its...I don't know what it is.
Bittersweet?

There are nights like this when I think this would be safest for everyone, including my cowardly self. Just let me sink into the darkness and cold and fade from memory. I will go through the motions of a person all the while being a shell of when I was truly alive.
Sometimes I crave the old evils too much, the letting go and moving into the passenger seat, the forgetting who I am and caring less who anyone else is.
I'm not sure what keeps me anchored at times.
And sometimes I'm not sure if I am anchored to the light or the shadows.

Since we last met.
I have been told that I'm used to being the smartest person in the room by someone who didn't mean it as a compliment.
I have been told that I haven't changed a day by someone I once made love to, to which I answered cleverly enough "I have this painting at home with a cloth over it."
I have been told that "she" no longer loves me and hasn't since before...well, I won't say before what because I should remain in the shadows.
I have been told that we should divorce and stay friends.
I have been told I am loved but that she is not sure we will ever be together because there are too many paths for her and she has a premonition that something will take me from her.
And, finally, I have been told that he is still out there. Waiting. And that if I am wanting enough then he will gladly take me back. Back into the comforting, cold dark.

The shadows are the only things that really crave my attention on a permanent basis.

I finally found a job, it barely gets us by but we get by, I have a family, including a little one a little over a week old.
And yet, ere I am on my dark cloud account kind of wanting the world to end. Its probably just stress and self pity for having to carry the burden so far for so long.

I have come to think that maybe I was wrong about love too.
Maybe its just prgnancy talking or maybe she's afraid to say what she really thinks.

She has said she will leave me and leave our child with me because she sees herself as venom in my life. I told her if she needed to leave then I could not stop her but not to play the "Its me not you" card.
I really don't know what to do or say anymore. ts all falling apart again and this time I'm not happy, it isn't what I want like last time. I love my wife and I know there's a good person in there, a much better person than me. But either I drag her down, something else drags her down, or maybe we are just both weak enough that we drag one another down.

She has ripped out my heart with this talk of leaving and, on top of this, she has left quite a mess to be cleaned up either way. I can never tell her this to her face, of course, but its true. She has brned almost every bridge here except my immediate family. My friends don't want anything to do with her for the most part and after some of the things she has said I'm not sure I blame them. My brother has said flat out that she's the most negative person he knows.

But its too late. We are with child and the time to really put a foot down and do anything about this is come and gone.

I will wither and come to resent her more and more. I will try not to take it out on our child, I know I won't do that. But, in the end, will the love wither with me? Will we become a loveless union like my last one?
Do I deserve any better? Who do I think I am, really, yeah?

If anyone actually reads this pathetic pattering of words, which I sincerely doubt, then you might have guessed that this is not my only way of posting.
I have, in a sense, a secret identity.
The fact taht the things I say in this particular journal never reaches others is a testament to my own insecurities. I know this. It changes little.

The problem is, just lately, that I feel that the "two identities" really aren't. My "real journal" is just as empty as this one. No one responds. The childish thing to say would be "no one cares". But I think the reality is that they might care, just a little, but not enough to give me any real attention and, as much as I play it off not needing anyone and being the brave lonely soldier, I really could use some attention.

There is one person in my life who gives me more attention than I could ever want and that should be enough. It really should. But, though I would never compare that feeling to the other, I need the attention of friends as much as the attention of love. One does not replace the other and it would be nice to have both.
Still, we are coming to a day to be thankful, and I should probably be more thankful for what I do have instead of mourning what I don't.
I guess I'm just pathetic that way.

So me, meet me. One in the same. A lonely dark soul who doesn't count his blessings nearly enough.

Divorce and then new romance. 
A wonderful thing. The most wonderful thing I had ever encountered. 
We met we kissed we loved. 
I had to come home. 
Now we don't talk. We don't write. We don't mention one another. 
She needs time to think things through maybe. However...
I am feeling more and more it was simply a shadow of love...