my footsteps emit echoes,
they bounce off the black horizon and ricochet back to my ears.
i have long since learnt to treat them
with the same disdain i treat
the damp edges of my eyes
my own thoughts have become mockery
against me. i walk down the pier.
floorboards creak below, unable to hold the weight
of both me
and the demons
that cling onto my back.
my shadow is not one of a lone silhouette.
it is of two, me
and my ghost.

i am not sure
which i am.

the dust that line the boardwalks
no longer disturb me.
i have long since clothed myself
in loneliness. though it's warm,
it sinks.
it is only when i feel the rush of another's pulse
the heat off skin,
that my heart starts beating again -
flames engulfing defibrillators,
and i am suspended in a hot air balloon.

there are no winters in my life,
there is only blistering heat
and dampening warmth.
i can't say when all the coldness had seeped out of me,
for i never stopped caring
about myself.
i believe that
i care too much.

now, i find myself drawn
more to the darkness looming
from the lighthouse up ahead, invaded by
shadows after its shimmering fortress
of fireflies and candles
had been burnt down
by its own heat.

the pier reminds me of my thoughts,
discarded and clothed in dust.
leading to nothing but
a shambled shell of a building
burned to ashes by its own light,
crumbling to pieces,
dismembered fragments
lost in the ocean.