With sterile thank you's we say our goodbyes and set fire to our feet as we walk. Illuminating the opposite directions we now travel.

A hollow end to a race that never truly started because neither of us really know how to run. Though I would definitely like to pretend that I can, boasting of my previous wins and marathons, urging you to the start line as I stand next to you unable to move myself.

I am a masked hollow giving advice that I want to hear, obsessed with finish lines with no plan put into the journey, no realistic way to go. Moving not an inch while I stand still at the start.
I am ambitious beyond myself, I'll peddle fanciful tales of my dreams and the life we could lead, shadow checks that I have no intent of paying out.

My feet are on fire now but through no will of my own. I run in the opposite way using someone else's flames to push motivation into my legs. It will maybe get me halfway, if I'm lucky, before I stand around waiting for another tourist who will be easily manipulated into believing my fantasies and selfish promises.

I am a salesman masquerading as a running partner, with no intension of making it through the race.
You were right to say goodbye, never fooled by my disguise. You escaped before my faulty products and cheap knock offs poisoned your soul.
I hope your fire caries you to the finish line you run towards, leave the merchant's at the start before you go.

My concentration swirls into the flow of my coffee, as it spins around the mug and I try to find some semblance of tranquility. Everything is busy, I’m busy, my friends are busy, the life I want requires me to be busy.

I’m tired, incredibly tired, I don’t believe I’ve felt well rested since the day I turned eighteen and the land that formed my world fell from under my feet and I’ve been struggling to keep my head above water ever since.

Is this what life is now?
Is this what the next however many years still remain to me will consist of?
Constant worry, constant want?
Constantly wishing for the freedom I didn’t know I had in childhoods liberation?

I look down at my coffee, now half drunk and wonder which side of that half I sit on. How far is too late? How long can I truly skirt on the edge of life before I realise what it is I want? How long before I’m written off by my family and friends, before I live the rest of my life medicated to deal with existence.

This is all I do mostly. Ask questions I’m either too scared to answer or too lazy to make irrelevant.
I find it hard to believe this is normal. When I talk to friends and strangers about the existential dread and constant worry that accompanies my days, only to be greeted with nodes of approval and an assurance they feel the same.
Does it make me feel less alone?
Do I feel less ****** up for knowing or does it just scare me more that I live in such a damaged broken world.

My coffee cup sits empty, as I scoop out another spoon full and turn on the kettle again.
Debating whether I should get drunk or high tonight.
There are worse things to be addicted to, I say.