I wish I had your eyes. I really do. I wish I could see all the colors that you seem too. The vibrancy that I've been missing for so many years...

He looked up. Same walls. Always the same. Gray paint, chipping away. Water damaged brickwork. He glanced upward. Same energy efficient lights adorning the same stained and faded ceiling tiles.

One thirty am.

I wish I had your mouth, I really do. Wish I could string words together like you can. I wish I could find the rhythm that your heart beats too.

He looked up at the furniture placed carelessly around the room. It's sparse. The room feels almost empty. A bed tucked away in the corner, half hidden in shadow. The sheets are wrinkled. He hasn't bothered washing them in a while. He's been sleeping on the couch. The cushions are getting threadbare. They were already worse for wear, over a year ago. He remembered what it felt like to drag it inside. How he almost pulled a tendon trying to get it through the door.

I wish I could fly away from here, like you did. Cut all my ties, burn all my bridges. I wish I could embrace the unpredictability like you have.

He looked up at the walls.

I wish I could clean all the filth off my hands. You always did have such impeccable hands.

He looked up at the walls. Same cracks, same cracks. Looked over at the can of paint. It'd been there since he'd put it there. He'd left it there the week before he'd moved in. He'd been meaning to touch up a few spots.

I wish I could rid my mind of these festering insects. I wish, I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Always with the buzzing static filling up the endless quiet, never quite masking it. Always with the static, ringing in his ears. It was always quiet, so very quiet.

I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.

It's so quiet. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't think straight. He looked up at the walls. Sixteen strings, dangling down, one fragile spine impaled in a back that it won't fit.

I wish I could see through your eyes, hear through your ears.

It's so quiet, he'd never hear a thing again. Sixteen candles blown out in the breeze. One untouched ice cube left in a glass on the coffee table, so mundane, so unconcerned with the sun soaking in through the window.

I wish I could be as hauntingly beautiful as a raven perched on a telephone pole in mid November.  

He looked up at the walls. His hopelessly outnumbered little diatribe barely holding its own against the cascade of static, swelling, thriving in the void left behind by the silence. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

If only I could enter your mind. Swim through your deprived notions, your sensations of pleasure you derive from nothing good at all. Things we all keep hidden.

He looked up at the printer. It's sitting on an orange crate in the corner opposite the bed. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

If I could wish at all, I'd wish for this eventuality. It's harrowing, you know. Wishing for things. Knowing that all hope has so carelessly been squandered on things you couldn't care less about.

He'd left a soda can sitting on his desk. He picked it up. It's still a little sticky.

I wish I could be as free as can be. I want to be free. I want to be as free as a bird. Not a sacrifice, please.