War Paint

Resilient
adj
1. (of a person) recovering easily and quickly from shock, illness, hardship, etc.; irrepressible.

Let's get fucking serious here, shall we?  I am in the middle of a war and the battleground is inside my head.  I fight this battle each and every moment of each and every day, sleep included.  I was fighting this battle when I lived in New York, but I did not know the colors of the enemy.  With each passing day they become more clear.  So, like I said, let's get fucking serious.  It's time to batten down the hatches and prepare for war.

You are my enemy.  I am my enemy.  My addiction is my enemy.  I must defeat the trio at all costs, regardless of the pain it may cause me.  I will not lose.  I never lose, I am too fucking strong to be defeated by a coward like you, a liar like me and a poison like my addiction.  Today I don my suit of armor, grab my sword and put on my war paint.  You may have been firing the first shots, but now it is my turn to volley.  I will not be defeated, I have never been defeated and I do not give up.  You should know that by now.  I always win in the end, I may leave scarred and broken, but I never lose a fight I put my all into.

Step one is to defeat you, flank your position and mercilessly crush you.  Since you refuse to acknowledge my existence and will not communicate your feelings to me, I have determined you to be enemy number one.  You will die.  I do not mean this in a literal sense, but more in the sense that I must kill you inside my head.  I must see the forest for the trees, you are a pitiful coward.  You left the man you supposedly loved over the phone.  You pussy.  You could not even stand to face me and tell me the truth.  Secondly, you left me while I was in a fucking mental ward, at my absolute lowest and when I needed you the most.  You left me high and dry, with no one to care for me and no way to contact the outside world.  You fucking coward.  Regardless of what you wish to believe, I know that your parents had a hand in your decision.  You fucking child.  You would not fight for the man that you supposedly loved, and you would not issue me the ultimatum that I truly needed to get myself on track.  You just cut and ran when the going got tough, and then decided that it would be a good idea to hold my personal possessions hostage.  You let your dad do the talking because you were too much of a coward to admit that you betrayed me when I needed you the most.  You may say that you loved me, but we both know that you sat back and waited for your perfect man to come and be molded into your perfect rich Long Island boy.  I dropped everything, gave up everything for you and you just sat on your ass and waited.  I would not or could not change and you did not have the guts to truly confront me with what you needed to say.  You let daddy do it for you.  You are pathetic, you are a liar and you are gutless.  I am glad that you left me because I cannot believe I asked a piece of shit like you to be my wife.  How delusional I was.

I will crush you for I am far stronger than you.  You can deny it all you want, but we both know that I am the victor.  I do not fight this battle to get you back, I don't fucking want you back.  I fight this battle out of spite.  I fight this battle to show you that you missed out on the one man who truly cared about you, warts and all.  I fight this battle with a smile on my face because I know that you are running out of time, something I have plenty of.  Deny it all you want, I couldn't care less.  When that younger, sexier, smarter and more loyal woman does finally come around I will have been fire tested and I will know how to please her in ways you never imagined.  You are such a fool.  I will extinguish you from my mind, you will not rule my nightmares.  I will be your nightmare while you lie in bed with another man who values you only half as much as I did.  It's too late now you coward, you lost your chance.  I gave it all up for you and you rejected me, good luck finding a man to make the sacrifices I did.  I truly mean it.  Good fucking luck.

Step two is to defeat myself.  I am a liar.  I lied to you and I lied to myself.  I was in total denial about how deep my mental health issues ran.  I too was a coward, a pussy and a baby.  I was too afraid to hear the truth about how fucked up my head was and I let it destroy everything I worked so hard to build.  Never will I let that happen again.  I was too busy fighting the battle in my head for the wrong reason, to please you.  Now I see that I must fight this battle for me and me alone.  I am the important one now, I know that my recovery will only benefit me.  I am through doing it for you and your yellow-bellied family.  I am number one.  However, being number one means that I must admit my faults and address them with the sword.  I shall chop out the liar from my heart, I will cut out the coward from my soul and I will dissect the disease that nearly consumed me for I am far stronger than anything inside my head.  Thank you for clearing the fog of war for me, helping me see what was wrong with me and what made me a pitiful excuse for a man.  I am pitiful no longer.  I am strong.  I will not be defeated, I will take the sword to my chest and cut out the disgusting man that I became in New York.  I will crush his throat, taste his flesh and burn his corpse.  As I stand on my battlefield smelling the stench of burning flesh, I will watch the phoenix rise from the ashes of the slug that I once was.  For again, I will be the victor.  I will not be defeated.  I have applied the red blood of my enemies to my face.  I am ready for battle and I will destroy each and every thing that gave you an excuse to cut and run.  I am strong, but I will grow stronger. 

Step three is to defeat the addiction which ruined everything I had worked for.  I have something to be proud of, it's called clean time.  I piss in a cup every other day, not because I am forced to but because I force myself to.  I am accountable to no one but myself.  I know what my smoking and drinking did to our relationship and my life in general.  I know that it turned me into a paranoid mess.  I know that it is a disease that seeks to rob the very breath from my lungs.  I could have come home and wallowed in my sorrows with a bourbon and a bowl, but I choose to fight them instead.  If I owe you for anything, it is for opening my eyes to the most deceptive and cunning enemy I have ever faced.  Addiction is a tricky little fucker, a slimy worm, but by going to my meetings and working my program I will be the victor.  I will not be defeated.  Nothing can stop me now, certainly not a stupid plant and a glass of cheap liquor.  I will throw my all into battling this, my most dangerous enemy, because I wish to prove to myself that I am stronger than you chose to give me credit for.  I will defeat it because it will prove to me that I am stronger than I chose to give myself credit for.  I am a survivor.  I am resilient and I will not fucking die.  Just try and kill me, you will have the fight of your life.  I will not be defeated.  I will conquer my addiction, ripping it from my brain and spitting on its grave.  I will not be defeated.

This is my war song and I sing it with violence in my heart.  My three enemies have evoked such a powerful anger inside of me that I was afraid of my very dreams but no longer.  No longer will I be the victim.  No longer will I be beaten down by nonconstructive criticism, my own pitfalls or by my dependance on mind altering substances.  I will walk through this fire and I'll take my fucking time doing it, I want to feel the pain because now I feel.  I may only feel hate, rage and anger; but at least I feel something.  I am no longer masked by your false love, my lies or the haze of smoke and drink I chose to place myself in.  I have torn the mask off and I have applied my war paint.

I will be the victor.

I will crush you.

I will crush the pathetic lying me.

I will crush my addiction.

I will not be defeated and that is a fucking promise.