call me twisted,
but i’ve always admired a certain degree of controversy.
complexity is a dangerous beauty, like a hurricane -
admired from afar,
deadly up close.

my biggest fear was always photocopiers.
monotonous carbon copies, binge feeding
on Christmas music
and cold commercialized coffee.
simplicity was schematic,
intricacy was ******.

with a quivering hand and downcast eyes,
i clothed myself in these layers.
gift-wrapped, with a ‘danger’ sign as a gift card,
i became an enigma to myself.
diamond rings came with dark clouds,
locks and keys gave way to gun shots and bullet wounds.

fairytales were never meant for the 3-d world.
none of us are “fated” for a happy ending.
riding off into the sunset only comes with
hard work and hard lessons.

yes, i may still be an overthinker.
i may still have more thoughts than i have time
to put them in.
mundane things are still transfigured into
tainted, disfigured imitations
of insecurity, agonising and mental mutilation.

but it does not have to be this way.

pick up a pair of 2-d glasses.
you don’t have to see the world in technicolor.
sometimes monochrome lenses
do tinge the world
in shades of nostalgia, clarity, and hope.

peel off those layers.
you may cry, but cry of catharsis.
it may sting, but salt always does.
wear simplicity as your sail,
rose-tinted with trust and a silent knowing.
you may realise that what you were always looking for
was always right beside you.

the air is stale,
like the taste of morning breath.
noises around me steadily lose their reality.
meaningful sounds all end up as silence.
the hush grows, deeper and deeper, like silt
on the bottom of the sea. i watch
as the layers pile
higher and higher.

the stench
of piled emotions, forced
mediocrity, of hands
on the analog clock
ticking past the surface of time.

unopened biscuit tins, rusted gold finishings
on closed bedroom doors.
blazing 2am desk lamps
instead of firecrackers.
keyboard clicks, coffee cup stains.

the air feels heavy, with glances
that never meet; sealed lips,
heavy airs, and hearts
that never hear each other.

the air is thick, and the thread -
holding us together,
holding me together,
so thin.

i used to be able to tell their thoughts
by the temperature. now, it reads
heavy. still.
like a rock on a riverbank.

and i let the waves wash over me,
just past the surface,
nothing deeper.

after all,
you can't increase nothingness.

but

i don't want your advice about hanging in there
i don't want to hear about how i should wait for the rest of my life to begin
i don't want to hear about what should give me light
i don't want to hear about the struggles of valuable lessons or the triumph of hope

i don't want empty promises or vacant encouragements
i don't want your moral high horse or veiled condescension

i want to hear your honest opinions
i want to hear your soul cry out in protest
about how you're drowning your sorrows
about how your brain feels like a worn out sponge
and your heart an old wrung rag

i want to hear how you're close to giving up
i want to hear how you're burning out
i want to hear how coffee makes you shake
i want to hear how you need pills to sleep
i want to hear how the thoughts of your future scare you more than your past ever did

i want to hear all your fears.

i want to know that in all of mine,
**i'm not alone.

I wish I could feel emotion as a singularity.
just one, intense emotion,
one engulfing thought devouring all of my being.
one singular, unitary, simple drive.
powerful.
as a black hole devours all particles of any existence,
even light itself.

they say that if you stood on the edge of one,
hovering at the point of no return,
time becomes as simple as space.
the universe is no longer a mystery.
the Big Bang as quiet as
that abandoned swing on the playground.
space and time are but children,
gravity that kid who
forgot his lunchbox.

no subjective meanings,
no in-betweens,
no emotions.

sometimes I wish I could see
my thoughts as binary,
or my memories as morse.
sometimes I wish I could understand
that we are nothing but the sum of our parts,
the outcome of a spectacular binding
of cell to cell:
a container of molecules.
that sadness is a school brawl between chemicals,
happiness an accidental firework
set off by a wayward alchemist.
all irregularities, as explained by
human error.

but the only thing human about an error
is the error itself;
the most fragile thing about a human
is his humanity;
the closest we can ever be to God
is on the verge of our own ruin.

weightlessness is only felt
halfway off a building,
freedom only gained
halfway away from home,
love only experienced
as one half of a broken heart.

there is no light without darkness,
no warmth without the cold,
no way to experience things
two at a time.
we will always exist in paradoxes,
as one or the other.
as a singularity.

the only place we can be God is
right here -- on the event horizon,
the point of no return.

this feeling of emptiness,
this state of being,
isn’t a conflict between feeling dead and alive.
it’s more an ethereal, metaphysical
sensation of not really being here.

in the past two years I’ve changed identities more often
than I have had the chance to find out whether the mould fits.
I’m adaptable, for sure.
disciplining my thoughts and personalities
towards serving productive ends.
I know how to give people the me they want -
the happy, loving, family me;
the productive, efficient, smart me;
the me that’s gotten her **** together;
the me who has her life in order.
but I feel amorphous.
shapeless.
less and less
anthropomorphic.

less and less
concretely human.

as I focus on the tangible accomplishments,
on numbers and approving looks.
as I condition myself in a certain way
to succeed, I feel like I’m losing
something concretely human.
an element of constancy
in my personality, a key indicator of
concrete humanness.
it’s not that I’m spineless -
I know how
the world values the opinionated, the fiercely independent.
I just feel

faceless.

shapeless. no identity. no humanness.
no concrete indicator that
I’m actually here, in the real world.
that me existing as me - whoever she is -
counts for something.