Venomous Pandemic Rants, Part 2
A Distressed Introvert's Humble Plea
The extroverts are, in fact, the vampires. They lurk social media, waiting for someone, anyone to glom onto to talk at, texting ad nauseum at all hours, calling for fuck sake. Communication isn’t a two-way street for these motormouthed marauders, it’s a means to dump their every thought and impulse into any unsuspecting face. They just talk, and talk, and talk, liberally sprinkling vocalized pauses into their insipid diatribes, their pedantic soliloquies. Tell me more about your diet, your kids, your cancer, you, you, you. But really, please don’t. Maybe some of us speak when we have something of value to add to the world instead of contributing to the already deafening noise level. I don’t have to shout, I have clarity. Their thought seems to be “I chatter, therefore I am.” Just shut the fuck up. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Shutthefuckup until an original thought springs forth from your smooth, squishy brain, at least. I am not here as an empty chalice for your mediocre verbal regurgency. Is that a word? Ha! It is now.
I finally understand the proverbial void I’ve supposedly been filling with food, alcohol for years. It is there. A void. Avoid. Avoid the void. It is less pervasive when things are quiet, slow, and alone, omniscient when there is chaos and I’m called upon to orchestrate, pulled in every direction. I sit with it, and it’s like barely holding on to a panicked beast that is almost as big as everything you are, I am. Anger and rage all day, every day are the result of not feeding said beast. It snarls, it hates, it roars when it’s not fed, and it’s so, so hungry. When sated it sleeps, it languishes, it worries, it gnaws but postpones, it grows. The void is a gaping maw of need for stillness, aloneness, solitude, quiet, peace, inner peace. The void will not go gentle into that good night, because it is itself a scary, endless night.