I was buying into the illusion like others did.
Working the job. Saving money. Making plans. Which ultimately led nowhere.
I didn’t desire much of life for I’ve been long gone from it.
My life was their life.
I couldn’t claim or take control of it. Taking responsibility for myself was something I feared. I didn’t know the real me. I was playing along. Faking a smile when I wanted to die. For me, life seemed like an extended suicide.
I didn’t know why I was so scared to make the final shot. Why was I prolonging this absurd game? Was I expecting someone or something to pull me out? To miraculously come along and sweep me away and make me whole? I knew it wouldn’t be like that. Maybe underneath it all, there was a spark of light. A tiny spark in the immense darkness.
I wanted to feel warmth, I wanted to feel something I had not felt before. I wanted to not be this stranger anymore.
In the night I would stay up late with myself. And I would imagine myself gone. I’d imagine how this mind in this body with this personality in it — ceased to be. No more of me. Of this persona. Of putting with this role.
It felt so freeing too.
And just like that, I would fall deeper and deeper into the depths of the darkness of the night. The sound of my heart beating and my exhalations. Reminding me of my state.
What a fool was I? For others praised and cherished and desired life. Inviting it in, building families, and praising the gods. They took life to a dance and all I did was invite life to take a break. I couldn’t handle it. And all that I had in me was wasted time.
I wanted to drown everything around. Be it with booze and cigarettes. Inhaling smoke, stabbing my liver. Stay awake in the night and sleep all through the day. I wanted to escape it. A way out. I desired to isolate myself, to go lower and lower. Get worse and worse. Salvation meant continuity, and damnation meant extinction.
There were people and there was I. There was potential and there was me giving up. There were fears, anxieties, and sadness in me that I had to come to terms with. But I couldn’t. I shunned people even though some welcomed me. I was better off alone, or so I thought and that’s where it got me.
I couldn’t understand life, even if I was born into it.
It made no sense. Nothing did.
