How to begin this journal... huh. Well, do you ever wonder how insane killers can murder people and not be moved by the tears of their victims' families? It's not because they don't care... no, not at all. That's just normal killers. Insane killers will sit back and look at their work... and feel nothing. Oh, they understand it's wrong. They probably know that they should feel pretty damn bad for it, and probably don't feel very gratified at all. But they just sit there, mulling over everything... nothing... and just can't find anything about what they've done that touches something deep within them - even when they know it should, and even want it to.

Why do they do it? Anger is one reason; that's a given. But there is another reason, I speculate, that allows them to take a human life and not feel much of anything: thoughts.

"What am I? What is life? What is the Higher Power, and how did it/He create the universe? Will I know when I die? Should I die? Is age a disease that punishes the sinful human soul with a limited time on Earth? What if this is just a test? ...Why do I not feel? Where has my emotion gone, and why can I not cry? Why was my salvation ripped from my hands at my own undoing that I cannot fix? What of this person? Was he like me? Was she like me? Did they think like I do, have the same problems as I? ...I was an artist. And my inspiration, along with everything else, was destroyed. I am no more. If I'm even alive, I'm dead. There is no soul in the pit of my heart. What have I to salvage? I sleepwalk... even killing a person, against all of what I consider right, hasn't shaken a tear from my eye. A shame. I was such a beautiful person once. Why can't I get me back? Why does nothing I do work? Save me, God, or send me a savior... please...

Nay, I feel nothing. What am I?"

Perhaps the timeless tale of the killer being the victim isn't as nutty as it ever sounded. For what they've done is wrong, and they understand that, but they can't very well feel anything from it. Whatever an insane person does is not inferior by any means, but it is done with no emotion. Good works or bad, helping or hurting, they feel nothing. Can't get into anything. Mull over possibilities until their brain sparks out their force of life and leaves them only a physical being left to sleepwalk the earth until the end of their days, doing absolutely nothing of value because whatever they do accomplish will be nothing like it should have been. It's only those who do things anyway (that chance hurting somebody) and end up pinned against the law and sent to an institution, but it's not only those who need help.

A merry circle of thoughts rings a head, making them step out from whatever they do and watch and wonder and think. Not look at themselves from the outside, but observe from the inside and imagine what others must see. And they write words -so many words!- that are empty and gray and stark and cruel, and they can only use memory of what emotion was to understand others at all.

And once, they were called insane for loving insects and nature, writing tales of sci-fi horror, being touchy about people touching their beloved artwork, and defending their just beliefs with two (very small) fists of fury adorned with ignored nails. For crying when pained. For feeling, for feeling. And for countering the full onslaught of negative peer pressure and teasing and bullying with a smile and random stupidity, when all else had failed, and this was the last and only harmless resort.

Now they are immune to all emotion. Faking rage, depth, and anything else because they'd like to live up to their name in the eyes of others, at least. But the ring of thoughts never subsides, however much of an act they put on. And of course, acting, after a while, begins to become tiring, and they soon display that which they really are: a stark, emotionless whatnot that does nothing but stare and think, stare and think, no longer draw for pleasure during class nor do school work nor cry but just stare and think. Without a twitch. Without a tear. Perceived as boring, stupid, lazy, 'emo' (despite lack of dark clothing), inferior, brainless, and occasionally nuts (for displays of blind rage) by their peers, for certain. What a lovely (I say that mockingly), anger-fueling thought. But no, it doesn't matter. If one is to be viewed as inferior, so be it. Superior, inferior, good, bad, intelligent, stupid, any and everything... they are some of all, and so they will simply tell it like it is to anybody that asks anything. Act forever, for everybody. And never say a word about their current self.

No, I haven't killed anything or anybody. Just myself. Just mentally. And no, I don't plan to, either. Just imagine. So rest easy. And yes, I've written poems.