It is said that many disorders stem from an underlying problem, often a traumatic experience suffered in childhood; abuse; the death of a loved one, or pet; maybe even seeing something creepy in an old house.  Mine wasn’t anything like that.  I didn’t have an issue with something that happened to me when I was young.  Well, at least no more than the average human male.  It was the fact that I was young.  It was the fact that I was born.
     Yeah, I couldn't help that. I didn't have any say the day my mother forced me out of her womb and into the world. I don't remember the smarting slap the doctor gave my rear to start my breathing, although I do remember many things more stinging and hurtful.  But I guess you could say all the shitty things that have happened to me are direct results of that day.  Direct results.
     So what's my disorder? Well, I don't really know. That is to say that I’ve never actually been diagnosed with anything because it's nothing I've told anyone about. Not anyone who cared. But I do know the symptoms of my disorder:  it’s degenerate. It's eating away at me, slowly poisoning every bit of me, until I am too numb with pain to experience anything real. I live in pain. It’s chronically crippling me with its venom.  It’s not any physical pain.  The only physical pain I have is almost always self-inflicted. No, this pain is internal.  It’s the kind that no one sees, but everyone feels. And yet, I can't help but wonder if other people's pain equals mine's debilitating strength.

     I can feel the magnitude of my disease in my chest. It threatens to stop my breathing, close off my lungs and laugh while I struggle for air. It creates this empty, trembling void in the pit of my stomach, that, ever-widening as it is, threatens to consume me entirely in its black, endless depths.

     But that's not so bad. I've had worse.

 
     Worse like being alive. The struggle to try and invent new reasons every morning why I should get out of bed. To try and convince myself that this is the day that everything is going to work out right. Something good is going to happen today. Why? Because it just has to. Because if it doesn't, there might not be a tomorrow.  But there always is. Tomorrow comes again and again. No matter how many nights I spend clutching a full bottle of chalky white pills in one hand, while I stifle tears with the other, I always manage to wake up to something. That's a failure and a half. 
    

     How do you begin to die? When do you realize that everything you do from the moment you are born is a preparation for your eventual and inevitable death? I don't even begin to think that most would view life in such absolutes. But life is the bane of my existence. I wish only for the cold, snarling embrace of death. That solemn visage that covers all wounds and numbs all pains far better than any prescription I've ever had. It's a finality that I dream about, that keeps me up at night with longing, likened to that of a lost lover. Only this lover is not one that will shower me with rose petals and kisses when I am lonely, and caress my face when I am fearful and distraught. It is one that will kiss my lips as it plunges the knife, twisting it to make sure that it finishes the job. 
     Now that's love. 
     I wish someone would love me like that. Love me enough to put me out of my own misery. Out of everyone's misery. That is part of my disease, this idea that one has to be loved to be whole. I've never truly felt love, so I guess that’s why I have never felt whole, complete. I always feel like there is something missing in me, some vitally important process that I have yet to execute. The idea of holding full and complete passion in your life for another being, and having them reciprocate those feelings in kind, is a foreign concept to me. I can imagine loving someone that much, to be sure. I have loved another like that, even if I've stricken it from my immediate recollection. But I cannot imagine being loved like that by another. I can't picture anyone on this earth who would willingly choose me out of millions of potential "soul mates". Ugh. I hate that phrase. Soul mates? As if anyone has any sort of connection with their soul anymore. As if anyone is actually concerned about whether or not this is real or right. It's all about cheap fucks and big cuts as far as I've seen. No one gives a shit what they do to others, as long as they get laid or paid. 
     Am I like that? No, I don't think so. At least not now. I don't get laid. Well, that's not entirely true. I don't sleep around anymore is what I mean. I don't find any thrill from being with another guy every night, not like before. Mostly because I thought I had found the only one I needed. And I don't find promiscuity alluring the way I used to. It just sort of makes me.....sad now. The thought that all these people are searching for release, and I used to be one of them saddens me more than anything.
     I do get paid, but only because I like what I do.  I’m a musician, see.  That’s what makes this so much harder.  I can’t throw a fit, or get upset like I really want to, because the label doesn’t like high maintenance lead singers with a penchant for vodka and self inflicted punishment.  They’re so worried that I’m going to get so fucked that I’ll spill to the world that I’m not straight, and then all those little teenage girls who’d love nothing more than a chance to meet me, maybe snap a picture with me, will be put off because of it. 
     Fuck you.  I don’t do it for them.  I don’t give a shit if all the little pre-pubescent, angsty teenagers don’t idolize me anymore.  I’d rather not be idolized by anyone.  I don’t make music for them.  I make music for him, and I make music for me.  Everything I ever wrote was about the same subject.  It was all about him.  It was my only way of…expressing those things. 
     But I still love that stage.  Or at least I used to. Being on stage every night, it was what I lived for. But he took even that away from me. 
     Maybe that's it. Maybe I can blame this whole thing on him.
     Is that the truth? Do I even want to blame this on him?  Is that what this is all about- revenge?  I don't really know anymore...but truth is subjective anyway. I could tell myself anything and believe it, if I really wanted to. So yeah, I guess it's true. I've got to remember to put that in the note. "This is all your fault" or something like that. I want him to know he made me like this. Him and my brother. 
     My own brother... 
     How could he do this to me? Do you think he knows how I hate myself now? Has he seen what I do when he’s not around? No, I doubt it. He’s too busy fucking that boy-toy of his in the ass to notice that I'm deteriorating in this hotel room. My body might be gone already.  I think it’s decomposing as we speak.  But I’m not really sure.  You see, the drinking, the drugs, they make me numb. Not as numb as that last caress, but sometimes it's enough. Sometimes.  Hey, every hero has their kryptonite right?  Who would that hero be without that one thing that makes him question his heroic actions?  You know one of those “should he save the girl he loves and let everyone else die” sequences where he has to choose between his vice - his weakness, his love - and what's right.  Is that what I think?  That I’m some sort of tragic hero confronted by the weakness that I’m supposed to give in to at first but eventually overcome?  No, that can’t be me.  I am giving in.  Period.  In fact, I am putting up no resistance.  And besides, heroes are supposed to save the world.  I have made no such claims.  Although, maybe inadvertantly, I am doing just that.  I’m saving the world the trouble of finishing me off; I’m saving the world from my continued existence.  Three cheers for the victorious hero!  Hip hip hooray! 
     He hated it. He said it scared him. He said I scared him when I was up; when I was on my way to heroism. He was worried that I was going to die. I wonder if he'd ever thought it would be his fault.  Then again, he didn't know how sick I was; how I loved him like a brother wasn't supposed to.  And I didn't like to scare him. I just wanted release from the mundane; an escape from the monotonous daily routine that I just couldn't seem to shake. 
     I almost had it once. I did too much. I decided that I was invincible. I stared pounding shot after shot, feeling better and worse with each glass I held to my lips. And then everything went gloriously wrong. I started to shake, vomit, convulse on the floor in some shady bar. Unfortunately, the owner was a nice guy, and called an ambulance for me. I was so close, right? But my brother, he saved me. Or so I thought. He sat by my bed every day, telling me that I had to live. That he loved me. I looked into his eyes, distorted by the thickness of the lenses he wore, and realized that he meant it in the way that I always had. He loved me.
     I promised him I wouldn't do it again. And I didn't. But some promises are made to be broken, aren't they? Don't you ever make a promise that you don't intend to keep? He would know that better than anyone, I think. After all, he told me that he loved me. He promised me that he would never leave me. 
     Yeah, so maybe it was sick and twisted. He was my brother, right? But we loved each other, or rather, I loved him. Every night I loved him. I watched him put his glasses on the nightstand and crawl across the bed to meet me. I saw his body move, so smooth, so elegant, like a panther stalking its prey. I wanted to be his prey.
     Everything about him held a foreign familiarity to it. He looked so beautiful. He looked like me. Was that supposed to turn me off, making love to myself? It didn't. The thought that he was my flesh and blood made it all the more arousing.
     And that was it. Release from everything that I felt and hated and wanted all at the same time. I had nothing to fear at that moment except him. He now held everything that I had cast off of myself. And I just prayed, or would have if I believed in God, that he would never turn it back on me. He promised he wouldn't.  I believed him. He was my brother, and he had no reason to lie to me. We'd known each other our entire lives; I knew when he wasn't telling the truth. Or I thought I did.
     I still don't know how he managed to get it by me for so long. I still don't know how long it was going on for. I don't think I ever want to. 
    

     So I hate him now.
    

     He's not my brother, he's my enemy. Isn't that how it goes?  The hero and the villain were childhood friends.  A girl they both like gets in the way.  Then the reasons they loved each other become reasons to hate each other, and they fight till the hero kills the villain.  And then, when you think it's over, just as the villain is about to die, he makes some heartwarming speech about how he always cared about the hero and that he's sorry he fucked things up so bad.  In my case it wasn't a girl.  It wasn't really a boy either.  It was a promise: he was my life.  He made me believe that I was lovable, made me believe in myself. He made me invincible for real. I didn't need the drugs or the booze.  I needed him. He kept me safe and on track. He helped me to live. 
     But all of that bullshit that he fed me -- every line about loving me just the way I was, every night I spent curled in his arms, every time he gave me that special smile, the one I thought he saved only for me -- all of that was negated, no, annihilated, in the wake of his betrayal. 

     He never even saw me standing there. Neither of them did. So I just left. 

     I walked for, what I thought was, hours. Not even my special cocktails could numb what I was feeling at that moment. I found the skeeziest bar in the skeeziest part of town, and proceeded to drink myself into a stupor. For him. It was always for him. I loved him so much, so completely, I left no room for myself in the equation. But there was always room for him. Always.
     Until now.  Until I am so full of everything of his that I am empty and no longer contain anything of my own.
     I stumbled to the nearest hotel, slammed a wad of bills down on the counter, and tripped over my own feet to get to my room. I don't know how long I slept for, but when I woke up, I had a dim recollection of the last night's events, and more resolve than ever. I can’t live like this anymore. 
     So, today is the day. I can breathe easier knowing that I won't ever have to experience anything like this again. I won't ever have to feel again. 
     It's okay because the note explains it all. I've had all day to work on it, and it's so eloquent, I even impressed myself. There will be no doubt in their minds when they read it. They will know how they killed me. Or I guess they'll know why I did what he didn't have the balls to do.

     I mean, he could have had the decency to just stab me through the heart and get it over with. Now I have to do even that myself.

     I guess that the least I can do is leave a mess for him to clean up.