This is what put the kibosh on my writing "career," no, not the picture, which was taken by my very talented artistic associate Tia, but the picture's subject. Trying to divert attention to the basically invisible graffito of the name 'Mario' didn't work at all, it didn't hide the truth. I yell all these self-serving words into unhearing ears. I yell these words into the Northern Local Supervoid, which is really a place, by God, an actual place.
Yet I might as well not yell into that horrifying country, for all the good it does me! Yes, I blame my nose, most of all my nose, which disrupts people's otherwise good, beauty-filled eyeballs—it's this damn nose which forces everyone confronted with it to choose between rage and indifference, this nose which screams out to humankind to stay away from all public events I'm performing at, lest you find yourself complicit in the possible future attitude I might adopt, that it actually isn't morally reprehensible for me to have a nose like this.
Those who, due to my abnormality, wish I were dead, will—when whole families of worms have gorged themselves on its endless roads of cartilage—sell, at a very high price, all the manuscripts I gave them (which I must only have given them to congratulate myself, and which therefore they didn't read, to avoid becoming caged into congratulating me too). After all, because now that my nose is out of the way and in a grave with the rest of me, people will finally see that I was one of my generation's most masterful and innovative writers. At my funeral, people who think of me right now as nothing but a talentless nose (since, after all, noses can't have any more literary talent than knees can have wit) will say how much they loved the stories I gave them, which they only read after I died, and which they basically just scanned while performing the multitask of writing a eulogy for me and putting my manuscripts on Ebay.
Here is also why I am bad: because my nose isn't even necessarily the most morally reprehensible nose in the world at all, and I forgot the first rule of morality, which everybody but me learned on their first day of kindergarten: only one person at a time can complain about the features of their nose: the one person whose nose is least good. Because my nose is not the least good nose of all, even though the way I moan about it nonstop makes me look like that's what I think, my spirit is the least good spirit of all.
I am perfectly aware of the possibility that I am using my nose as a way to blame a superficial world, of which I wish so madly to be an ungrateful part, for the total lack of any attention paid to my writing other than from my mom and dad and several extraordinarily disparate artists whose admiration has been one of the most satisfying possessions I have ever received.
Yes, maybe everybody's intuition is correct but mine, and horrid noses never actually stop talent-modica, even though name the best horrid-nose writer you can think of.
Maybe the only reason I'm not given the time of day is that I strenuously overestimate my talent because I have narcissistic personality disorder, which according to the DSM-5 is defined as "a voluntarily-adopted character flaw for which vast shame is the only true remedy" as if you can't have narcissistic personality disorder and feel shockingly astonishingly heavy burdens (or "burthens") of shame. O and by the way, I diagnosed myself with narcissistic personality disorder, and I didn't even need a trained mental health professional to verify my diagnosis, one of whose symptoms is unjustified confidence.
The new health-craze is to suggest as many possible reasons for your total lack of contentment as you can, and if one of the reasons is correct, according to the verdict of a member of the void into which you scream, then you win.
I'd rather people hate the fact that I've not yet been hanged, but grudgingly admit that my writing is of intergenerational, trans-temporal quality—certainly I'd rather that than the other way around, but also than what I am actually: ignored, self-inflated, miserable, deserving of misery, jealous of those who, due to their ethically-shaped noses, are not morally reprehensible and are thus flirted with and worshipped by such desirable patrons as, say, their superiors.
Yea, indeed, my nose, and not my attitude, that's the origin of my talentlessness, and if you don't believe me, then retreat into that most private mental chamber, where only the truth is of any value, where socially graceful thought patterns are meaningless because you alone can access this chamber, and society cannot. Perhaps, now and again, a benevolent superhuman who is the focus of your spirituality stops by to visit you in your inner chamber of infinite honesty—retreat here, consult with this truth-loving superhuman, and with your own, naked self—and decide whether you are more, less, or just as inclined to read my screams as you would have been had I received a nose in the same echelon as those of the following writers:
Catullus: 84-54 BC
Marie de France: 1160-1215
Percy Shelley: 1792-1822
Sylvia Plath: 1932-1963
Note that Catullus didn't have that dark luck-rub mark on the tip of his nose, nor was Marie de France's nose made of giant pixels, both of which facts I know for sure, so don't try to tell me that these representations of their noses are anywhere near as beautiful as their actual ones were.
One pathetic advantage I've discovered as to my sorry state, which I should feel ashamed for not being more grateful to have, is that I can write whatever I want on my website and no one will call me out for its content: that is, my infinite and sociopolitically problematic thought processes which I am too incompetent and weak to defy verbalizing and posting. This immunity is a result of the fact that I would rather be called out in a public, negative, indelible way, than to be ignored, and since I'm not virtuous enough ever to deserve to receive something I'd rather have, only what I'd rather not have, then my being ignored is guaranteed, which means I can spew the most hateful lies about ethnic groups such as the ________ without ever being made to feel repercussions, because if one wishes to make me feel repercussions, one must first pay attention to me, and if one pays attention to me, then I've won, and I'm not allowed to win.
What ever gave me the idea that I deserve to win? Probably because I totally think I'm so much better than you. But if you're as good or, as I suspect, better and more deserving of victory than me, then you'll have no difficulty understanding that I haven't got the privilege to demonstrate humility: if I am ever humble, forget about being just plain ignored, I'll motherfucking evaporate. It's all I can do to squeak to my species that I do a good job, but because my nose is so misshapen, members of my species get pissed off with boredom when they hear my squeaks, for they would much prefer my silence—the beautifully-nosed, who are thrown entire meadows' worth of roses, have the luxury of brushing off praise by explaining that they might admit to a little talent, when their fanatics compliment their talent, having difficulty understanding the difference between a beautiful nose and talent.
I'm a straight white cisgender male of average weight whose college education was paid for by Mommy and Daddy, and even that didn't convince my society to heap positive attention on whatever I do no matter how mediocre it is—if not even the advantages of every possible social privilege can crutch up my writing, then the counterbalance, of my writing and nose being total garbage, must be heavy indeed.
If I may conclude by attacking the reader, you are not allowed to tell me that my problems stem from my feelings of entitlement, that is, you aren't entitled to tell me that, or even feel that way privately, unless you tell me what more I have to do to deserve what I want—not get what I want, just deserve it (BTW what I want is literary immortality which admission dooms me because nobody who gets it ever writes anything about it). The reason I think about myself so much is the same reason people dying of thirst think about themselves so much, but nobody loses respect for you when all you can do is discuss your thirst and your alarming inability to quench it, but do you have the courage to get so angry at me for mocking those who die of thirst by comparing myself to them that you bring my writing to the attention of others? Will YOU be the one who speaks out LOUDLY against this old pig? Will you have the strength to tell me that death is close to all of us, and that I am not remarkable for any reason, least of all because of my unpausing, unimpressive anguish?