My tinny laugh fills rooms my lungs could only hope to achieve Merriment and the soul of old Bachus fills this weary frame I'm told I'm so full of life The life of the party So happy that I exhale living I'm living I am alone in my room I'm living Haggard blonde hair and purple eyes look at me in the mirror my face is red, my marbles are bleeding Thoughts of stories and characters I love with all my heart emesis on pages that used to be blank I talk to myself almost constantly words and phrases repeated in a Tourettic staccato Blinking away the inner rain as I walk into stores "Sometimes I just get hit with an intense sadness Where I want to curl into myself Light the forge of my heart Warm these dying limbs" I am told I look so happy And I wonder if I perhaps should have gone into acting I feel so often like the cliche asking myself in between podcast and music and **** "It's...never going to get better is it?" and I've spent so many years fighting to answer that question I've spent many years fighting for the answers in questions that I don't want to ask I'm struck by fits of inexorable sadness and two decades of reflection has given me nothing but these words written in dark rooms with my smiling face