Masked

It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be free.

“There’s more to life,” they say.

My response, “what’s the point, anyway?”

Despite my absence, the sun will still rise before your eyes

Shining bright over this world full of lies in disguise

Each soul buried deep beneath protective layers of self defence & preservation,

Subjecting itself to eternal damnation,

Too afraid to reveal its true colours and face rejection.

We lock ourselves up in cages and deliberately lose the keys,

because cowering away in our comfort zone puts our mind at ease.

Submission

It’s all too familiar;

this feeling,

this silence,

this emptiness.

I think the universe finally decided I had taken a vacation from myself for far too long.

But I wasn’t homesick at all.

Why would I miss feeling like a lost tourist in my own head?

I’ve realized I can’t stay where I don’t belong.

I’ve already planned my next trip:

A leap towards eternal freedom,

A final sigh of relief as I watch the crimson rivers gushing over my palms, letting me sink deeper with each each ebb and flow.

Light.

Wasting away,

one breath at a time

Like a candle in a vacuum,

thirsting for oxygen to keep its flame dancing

It doesn’t burn like it once did; blazing bright and full of passion

It continues to surrender to the darkness,

Accepting its fate,

Welcoming the end.

Tick Tock

Most days pass by like a blur and you don’t really give yourself a chance to take a step back and ask yourself “why” you’re doing any of this

But then some days each second seems to last an eternity and you find your mind plagued with questions like “why bother?” or “what’s the fucking point?”

“Who is this facade for?”

And no matter how hard you try to find a satisfactory answer to these questions, you just keep digging deeper into an empty, dark abyss

The darkness stops terrifying you after a while, though.

It’s the daunting, inevitable moment when you’ll finally decide that it really isn’t worth it that haunts you.

It’s a constant reminder that each day brings you closer to your breaking point and it’s only a matter of time before you give up.

Corpse with a Beating Heart

Have you ever felt stale and rotten?

Like an unattended, maggot-infested wound

Have you ever felt insignificant and small?

Like you’re somehow smaller than an atom, part of something bigger that wouldn’t be any different if it were one-atom-short?

Have you ever felt like your heart is being engulfed in burning lava, making you wish it would just stop beating?

But it doesn’t stop. It just keeps going, and you keep waiting in agony

You have no other choice but to helplessly wait for the pain to stop.

Have you ever felt like tempered glass that’s been struck by a bullet; shattered into a million little pieces, absolutely impossible to put back together?

Have you ever felt so numb, that no matter how deep you cut yourself, you don’t feel anything?

Because I have

But I really hope you haven’t.

Pernicious Friendship

***

I have a friend

We do everything together; “joined at the hip“, as they say

I think the best way to describe him is as a therianthrope

Somedays I wake up and he’s a small mosquito, constantly buzzing in my ear

And somedays I wake up to him roaring like an angry, ferocious lion and there’s nothing else that I can hear

These are the days I am instilled with fear

Our friendship is toxic and abusive, rendering me a despondent captive

Bound by the shackles of his cold embrace

I’m in a constant daze

My mind is a clouded haze; a maze.

Tired of running in circles

I have no doubt,

there’s no way out.

***

Soar

***

Sometimes I wish I was a bird

Fierce and free to fly away whenever I want

wherever I want

Not be bothered by life’s trivialities

Free from sin

Not burdened by the sterile search for redemption

Weightlessly gliding through the clouds

Effortlessly majestic.

Sometimes I wish I was a bird because I wouldn’t be me then.

***

Numb.

***

It’s hard to tell

If I have thick skin

Or

If I’ve been burnt to the third degree with no viable nerve endings left.

It’s hard to tell why everything around me seems like it’s happening in a parallel universe.

It’s hard to tell why I can’t seem to escape this labyrinth inside my mind.

It’s hard to tell why my world continues to get blindingly darker.

It’s hard to tell why there’s no explanation for any of it.

***

Guilt

***

Trying to escape the weight of this anchor has exhausted me

It continues to drown me deeper beneath its weight

Futile attempts to circumvent and swim back up have now transformed into looming hope for this descent to come to an end

But it continues to relentlessly drag me down at terminal velocity, deeper into this abyss

Maybe my destination-less journey would be hastened if a kind soul aboard the vessel would just cut the rope, granting both of us freedom

***

Unapologetic

***

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment

I’m sorry I failed you

I’m sorry that I went left every time you wanted me to go right

I’m sorry that I kept trying to speak to you in a language you didn’t understand

I’m sorry that the only way I could find myself was by losing my way

I’m sorry that you feel my life is nothing but a cascade of wrong decisions

I’m sorry that my unrefined, rough edges broke the mould you tried so hard to fit me into

But most of all,

I’m sorry, from the bottom of my heart, that I’m really not sorry at all.

***