Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 16:39:08 -0400 From: Rhoni Lake Subject: New: Animus Title: Animus Author: Rhondda Lake E-Mail: rhonilak@icontech.com Rating: PG Catagory: V,A Keywords: Angst Summary: Introspective thoughts. Disclaimer: Once again I use no names. So there. This is just one more dark diversion into my latest rampage of angst-fic. Short and bitter. ANIMUS by Rhondda Lake I hate. I hate sleeping in a ball in the back of stolen cars. I hate the cold piss, bitter smell of fear burning into my sinuses. The way every muscle in my body aches from those contorted slumbers and the trip-wire tightness forced from always being on edge. The feel of wearing the same clothes three days straight and smelling my own chill sweat emanating from them. I hate the frigid blackness in the center of me. The way lies slither from my mouth with utter conviction. The haunted eyes that peer at me from the cloudy depths of scraped and dirt fogged mirrors offered up in truck-stop men's rooms. I hate that I don't dream anymore. I used to dream. Normal dreams like flying or swimming or moving through the landscapes of my mind both good and bad. I don't even have the luxury of nightmares to promise there is still a conscience hiding deep inside the emptiness of my soul. I once dreamed of escaping my family's legacy of loyalty to a country I never knew. I ran away and dreamed of serving the country I knew from birth. I dreamed bright dreams of promise and glory. Of being a hero and making others proud of me, so I could convince myself the opinion of long abandoned parents didn't matter at all. When approached and offered the dream of protecting this country from threats within itself I thought of my Sleeper parents and grasped the dream with tightly clenched fists of desperation hungering for atonement for the sins of others. I hate the way those dreams were warped into something ugly; until I was caught up in the stream of follow along or die. I hate how even the nightmare warped again to devour me; no matter that I was an obedient slave to my own sense of self preservation. I hate how I turned out a thousand-times worse then my despised parents because they could at least claim loyalty to someone, something beyond themselves. How I betrayed the very things I dreamed of protecting. That I betrayed myself. I hate that I know the plan, and am helpless to stop it, my only hope - to survive it. I hate how that knowledge is both life-jacket and loadstone in the seas I now swim in. I hate those two self righteous assholes for being part of the knotwork of betrayals that formed the fabric of me. For always thinking they're right. For judging with a contemptible sneer. For following the rest of the wolves in snapping at the outsider sniffing at their territory while thinking they are going their own way. I hate how whisky and beer refuse to drown either the physical or mental pain. I hate having to pick pockets and locks to get my next meal, my next tank of gas... my next identity. I hate not knowing who I am anymore, and the fading memories of who I once was. I hate that the blood on my hands doesn't bother me anymore. I hate this emptiness so vast that it's eaten away everything within me save one. I hate. ------------------------------------------------- Feedback? You know where to find me. (NO! Not passed out drunk on the corner barstool!) E-Mail me, baby.