i. i stare in the mirror until there is nothing left and my features starts to melt away. ‘who am i’, i wonder, ‘without my memories to serve as a foundation?’ i caress the mirror and try to remember something, anything from my distant past but i cannot. all i can hear is the endless, empty, and meaningless ballroom music i once danced to years and years ago repeating over and over again in my mind. perhaps i am just an empty shell now- ready to be thrown out with the rest of the trash.

ii. day by day, my memory worsens, until i am unable to remember what happened only the day before. they are worried, but for what? my memory and mental state have already deteriorated beyond fixing. and when i tell them to take care of my rose garden when i am gone, they begin to cry, their salty tears running down their cheeks.

iii. today is my final day, i think. i can no longer remember the faces of my loved ones, and the only people i see crowded around my bed are strangers. suddenly, i remember a long-lost memory, but it is too late, because i am already slipping into nothingness, and the strangers are all crying, and i wonder why, and

i looked away
and there was
nothing left;
only
a quiet whisper
of what once was.

flowers bloom in the kitchen sink
where she lays with her eyes
sinking into her hollow skull.
‘what happened?’ he asks, his hand over his mouth-
horrified-
and a voice answers,
‘the pit inside her
grew and grew
until it was no longer just a pit-
it was Tartarus,
and it swallowed her whole.’

the moon is slowly moving away from the earth,
just as we are slowly losing grasp of reality.
a single word
escapes from her frozen lips
and my heart sinks
to the bottom of my fantasy-filled ocean;
just like how
i want to drown
in the breaking waves of my delusions.
but, every second i spend with you
drags me down to the
cold hard pavement of
reality.