The worst thing about being naked and then being hit by a car is that road rash is a problem for skin.
Why was I naked in the middle of the road at noon? I'm glad you asked, imaginary other half of this conversation! I have no idea. Some characteristics of bipolar disorder include dissociation, hallucinations, and fugue states, so sometimes, I wake up in places I didn't go to sleep.
So there I am, nude, rolling on the hood of a car screaming about the government conspiracy to take away my feet. Not my real feet, just my brain feet.
I'm about six inches from the concrete when I realize, in slow motion: like the exact opposite of a rhinoceros attack, this... is not how I imagined my life would turn out.
When I was little, I broke both of my ankles because I was sure a cape would enable me to fly. My parents attributed this to my strong imagination. Last year, my therapist called it a delusion. I fail to see the difference.
Also, I really can fly and see the future and make people leave coffee shops with my mind 43% of the time. Sometimes, I see people as colors. This guy right here (gestures to man in audience) is purple, which means he just got a promotion or a blow job. A blowmotion, if you will. The point is, here is a list of things my brain has told me to do: join a cult, start a cult, become a cabinet maker, kill myself (so, in essence, become a cabinet maker), break into and then paint other peoples' houses, have sex with literally everyone who reminds me of my mother, fight people who are much... fightier than me, like the cops (so, in essence, kill myself).
I think a lot about killing myself, not like a point on a map, but rather like a glowing exit sign at a show that's never been quite bad enough to make me want to leave. See, when I'm up I don't kill myself because holy shit! there's so much left to do! And when I'm down, I don't kill myself because then the sadness would be over and the sadness is the old paint under the new. The sadness is the house fire or the broken shoulder; I'd still be me without it, but I'd be so boring!
They keep telling me seeing things that aren't technically there is called "disturbed cognitive functioning". I call it having a superpower. Once I pulled over a 110 freeway and jumped out of my old jeep because it burst into flames twenty seconds before it actually burst into flames. I knew my girlfriend and I will be together because she turned bright pink the first time she saw me.
I know tomorrow is going to come because I've seen it. Sunrise is going to come, all you have to do is wake up. The future has been at war, but it's coming home so soon. The future, it looks like a child in a cape. The future is a map and the treasure. The future looks like gravity; everyone is slowly drifting toward everyone else. We are all going to be part of each other one day. The future is a blue sky and a full tank of gas. I saw the future. I did, and in it, I was alive.
My god, I was alive.
