Like a cloud eclipsing the sun,
I feel myself fade into the slums of this shell.
A few steps back from the caverns that were once my eyes,
A gut-wrenching, heart-twisting feeling emerges.
When did I become someone else?
When did my sense of self become so convoluted?
I feel the me beneath the waves scream.
A muffled cry.
Silence.
I force my way forward, but feel nothing.
The robotic phantom that assumes my nature yields nothing.
The air separating the two is so dense it’s suffocating.
Every moment I forget myself more and more…
I can feel the former me grasping his chest,
Screaming for freedom to simply be.
The emotions of others swell within him like a storm that cannot be quelled.
His torment and frustration ******* him.
He’s crying alone,
A step away from the panes of reality.
I try to instill a sense of calm with words of warmth,
But nothing can reach him.
The me who used to feel and want and dream…
Has slumped into a chasm from which he can never be retrieved.
When did I forget what it meant to simply exist?
I whisper into the void,
Hoping that something can be salvaged.
He lifts his head for but a moment.
The cruel reality of being consumed.

"I like you."
A strong breeze passes through me.
I peer around, averting my gaze from hers.
The greys are fading.
The dim, ever unchanging lights slowly saturate.
How could I not realize how beautiful the sun was albeit only a single ray through the clouds?
The me in me cries in joy.
Life has color, life has meaning.
Everything has not been for naught.
I immerse myself in her existence.
What had been so mundane and exhausting is suddenly exhilirating and intriguing.
How could I have not experienced this before?
"I love you."
"I love you too."
The weights we carried were heavy but the load lightened by the minute.
A feeling of soaring emerges at my core.
A life intertwined and filled with a surplus of joy.
We eat, experience, sleep, wake, hug, kiss, share insecurities, provide support.
An unknowing feeling of dread is consuming her and I hardly noticed.
How could I notice how half-hearted and melancholy her smiles was?
She left for but a moment to rediscover what it means to exist.
I sleep alone, I wake alone, I exist alone.
I peer at my phone, ignorant to the returning grey.
Eventually it settles in.
The price I paid for thinking that I deserve such bliss.
She is gone, unsure, never willing to return
Melancholy as ever.
I am unable to cry.
I woke from a beautiful dream that I can never return to.
Days pass as I try to reconcile and collect the ephemeral remnants of my soul.
I wish her well and will welcome her should see find me as a cornerstone.
The hue she imbued in me for a short while is gone but the feelings remain.
I will not remain motionless.
I shall eat, experience, sleep, and wake alone
Awaiting the return of that ephemeral dream.
As I write this, tears finally fall.
Life is beautiful away from the grey.