I am alone.
The only sound is the vibrations from my air conditioner breathing into the empty space filled with clutter that is my room, and the background of the television in the living room of a child playing Fortnite.
I sit, legs crossed, on my bed with my computer tilted back slightly so I don't have to move as I type up something meaningless to put into the world in hopes that someone, anyone, will get what I'm really trying to say behind these words.
I stare around my room, desperately searching for a way to make anything feel surreal, I don't look at the keyboard; I don't need to, and I am content yet disappointed with everything and nothing all at once.
I turn towards my basil plant, he's been growing in my room for a few months now, but I wonder if he wishes and longs for the outside the way my body does when it rains.
My phone does a small alarm, and at first, I'm thinking "SHE WANTS TO CALL SHE WANTS TO CALL SHE WANTS TO CALL" in a manner of a second before I recognize it as an Instagram notification, not one from messenger.
I recall, suddenly, how you always make me out to be some one-dimension person without depth, and I wonder if that's who I really am.
Am I nothing behind these words, just someone who types and waits for the real souls to make something out of it, is that all I am? Without true thought, just words without meaning, just sound without a voice, just a paintbrush without the paint.
I'm nothing until someone reads this, and suddenly I'm some sort of attention seeker, right? I assume so, have you even read my other poetry?
Every other one is about cutting or death or depression.
Like, we get it, J, you wanna die.
do it already.
but I won't
and despite what you think, it's not because I'm afraid of the afterlife, or the absence of such, or the possibility. I'm not afraid of death, I'm not afraid of being nothing, of being bones and decay, of being sent to hell, of being part of the universe as my atoms spread, I just don't mind.
you told me that I just thought about what's in front of me, rather than thinking of the beyond, but you're mistaken. I think about it often, I just don't mind. Because I've wanted death for a good portion of my existence, I'm unbothered with any theories of what happens, I'll be dead in some way, and that's all that I really want.
but then I have this little thing called hope
so I don't cut too deep, I don't hang myself, I don't completely decapitate my head from my shoulders.
because what if.
What if there's a life waiting for me
a life with a wife who holds me close during the day and closer at night
a life with three kids who call me dad, who love both me and their mother
what if there's a life where I don't constantly feel this weight pressing down on me?
I'm not afraid, I can say this without a doubt, I'm not afraid of death or what happens when I leave this existence, I just don't mind it.
The air conditioner has gotten too loud and my mouth suddenly feels dry.
I set my tea on my altar, but my legs feel like they want to cry so I don't want to get up.
I haven't cut, mind you, I think I've just sat like this for a little too long.
I turn towards my plant
and I wonder if he, too, wishes and longs for the outside the way my body does when it rains.