My ears are ringing again in the middle of a discussion and I’m just too tired to care because it’s pretty much the third time it happened in the last hour. I miss a few words but still nod in enthusiasm during the conversation, trying not to show that I have no idea what the person is talking about. Sometimes I think I will drop dead in the middle of the day because of the exhaustion I carry. Just gone mid sentence. Sometimes it jus hits out of nowhere like a punch to the gut. Like standing up too fast with low iron. My heart beats just a tad too fast for my own liking but I just smile politely, say goodbye and leave. I go out to smoke and think. And count. All I do is count these days.
A year back, if not more, I started counting down the days until the weekend, thinking I needed to survive the week somehow so I could recharge. Rest, then perform again and do my best. It’s not that hard, right? It has been going on like that for quite some time and then one day, something just suddenly shifted. The tables have turned. The wind quieted down. The glass shattered. And something inside of me broke. Irreversibly.
It’s not living, it’s neither really surviving, nor existing. Maybe this is how a zombie would feel like if they had feelings? Anyway, I don’t know what this is but it’s hell. The one that breaks people beyond repair, the one that drops people to their knees. And then it just reminds me of the spark I used to have before it got extinguished under the weight of my own hubris.
“The things we’ve done to survive, they don’t define us.“
“What if you’re wrong? What if this is who we are now?”
All I am doing is going through the motions and still feeling like I am on the edge of a knife, going to topple over either way somehow, understanding that there’s no right or wrong, just a lose-lose situation. I think about my life in darkness, the shield of the night, the hours of AM and the smoke in my lungs. The darkness sings a lullaby and all I want to be is deaf in the moment so I don’t succumb to it. In late hours you’re either on top of the world or beneath the dirt. There is no in between.
When an animal is the most dangerous? When it’s backed into a corner.
“If you gottta burn it all to the ground, then let it burn”
Fuck, I need a reset button.
I only see the dark signs, the darkness, the bad, the glass half empty, the black streaks, the black holes in the skies. I choke on water like it’s holy. I burn my hands on the sun.
Everything has been drained of color and the cigarette I was smoking left an angry mark on my pale skin. The scars didn’t fade, the sun didn’t rise. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, the darkness didn’t disappear.
And then I begged and begged for someone to tell me what’s wrong with me.
