He suddenly became quiet.

He didn't feel like getting any of his thoughts
out into the world anymore.
He felt that nothing mattered
and that his presence was defined
only by the clothes he wore and
not by the words that wore him out.

He started wearing shirts. Up 'til the last button.
He became numb
and all of his dumb
fears
became brave
in one instance.

No one recognized his face anymore.. for a while now. They were concentrating on other things,
and when he finally recognized the truth
that was staring at him from the mirror,
he decided to hit the "snooze" button.

He couldn't find any reason to get out of bed in the morning,
nor to go to sleep at night.
He was in limbo,
in a purgatorial state of mind,
with one foot set in irrelevance
and the other one stepping in the **** of inadequacy.

He felt weak
and small,
although he was never thin,
nor fit.

He still loved everyone and wanted more from them,
even though nobody wanted more of him.

He often felt like the screaming guy in Munch's painting
- surrounded by color, light and everyone's rear end -
Oh, what a wonderful state of mind!

He stopped setting up his alarm.
It felt useless - everything had already happened, anyhow.
His life started showing the MUTE button in the corner of his internal screen.

He suddenly became very quiet
but despite all the silence that was surrounding him NOW,
there was a lot of noise in his head.