you are utterly torn apart. your heartbeat seems to accelerate but time is trickling to a near complete standstill. are you still in existence? all around you, voices are getting louder; the soft whispers reverberate throughout your numbed, hollowed skull,  and occasional laughter crackles like thunder to your ears. you blink, and with the effort descends a paralysing paroxysm so excruciating you bite your lip, lost and alone.

the feeling overwhelms you. a definite feeling of loneliness, even though you are surrounded by people, by the crowd. a feeling of solitary despair, enveloping your entire being and folding its wings around you. and you shiver, the cold gleam in its eyes piercing right through you while you are at your most vulnerable.

what is happiness? you ponder the question in your subconscious. what is it really? is it a good thing, or is it something that crouches in the corner, always ready to pounce on you and hurl you into the fathomless depths? is it something you would want, something you would embrace, or something you would abandon?

you can feel the weight; the unmistakable pressure of an unidentified burden that is lodged deep in the crevices of your broken heart. your heart— it is a shattered mess blown into smithereens. you know that even if you were to find every shard left, you will never piece it back together, and even if you succeed, it won't be the same.

you are a wreck of sorrow, a maelstrom of uncertainty— abandoned and cast away. joy does not favor you, and hurt is too protective of you; it won't let you go. you are trapped, a definite prisoner within the limits of its palm. and maybe, you don't want to be set free. maybe, this is where you belong— in a world of darkness and misery, where you are tossed about by the storms of a merciless vortex.

the atmosphere is familiar to you, but you'd decided to give light a try. you'd opened your eyes to a possibility of joy— something you'd never had. you'd decided to try to be everything you are not. and in those moments, those transient, evanescent eternities, you thought you'd finally understood what "happiness" means. but you'd been wrong. you'd bitterly realized that you'd never been right about something and that hadn't been an exception. you attempt a laugh but it sounds like a choked sob.

the amaranthine disappointment is suddenly too oppressive for you— you can no longer drag the weight of the chains after a taste of your brief wings of freedom. the difference is too wide, a distance comparable even to the gap between temporariness and perpetuity.

the sky in your world has lost the bright vividness it had for the short stretch of time. time, you realize, is but an illusion. and you wonder, are you living in "time"? if time is an illusion, a fiction of someone's imagintation turned into reality, then where will you be, if not in "time"?

an endless gray drapes over the landscape of your world, condemning your entire universe into unending bleakness. of winters colder than Siberian nights and mornings darker than a void.

you leave footprints in the snow.

but you know that you are torn, broken beyond repair, jaded to the point of no return, and that you've gone further than the lines of belief that marked the boundaries of your once bright soul.

you will no longer believe, you will no longer trust. because you are the essence of sorrow itself, the epitome of despair and hopelessness.

you are what they call "life", and you finally know what "happiness" is.

happiness is a lie; a picturesque delusion of doom, of the dark unknown.

happiness is everything life is not, and it is your enemy.

I have been trying to stop romanticizing introductions
Attempting to grasp the reality
That not everyone I meet is a potential soulmate
My mind was just born open I guess
Conditioned to want to love at first sight
I am more so addicted to people than I am smoking
I have been trying my hardest
To keep my expectations low
Understand that not everybody has the intention of staying
I have had too many hellos turn into goodbyes
And
Too many hugs turn to leaving
I had been trying
To learn the opposite of welcome
Embrace temporariness with arms as wide as my eaget heart
So when we met
On a directionless sunday
In the living room you were calling home for the week
Know that
It took everything in my power
To not let down my guard
It wasn't until the quiet of the night
That I realized
I had already dropped
Goodnight turned to words to questions
To 3am caress
I was in your arms before I could even stop myself from letting go
But you
Are not the meaningless
One night momentary bliss I am used to
You
Are everything I have tried to avoid
For fear of losing again
I am trying to figure out how it is possible
That you are the kind of thing I'd been attempting to refrain from
Yet exactly what I want at the same time
You are the nicotine from the 5am cigarrette on your last night in town
Your goodbye serving as reminder to everytime I have been let down
But there was more hope in your seven letter goodbye
Than there is in any poem I have ever written
I am saying grace in a language that I still do not fully understand
And although both distance and time
Are two names that usually define ending
I see beginning
I see different
When we kissed
I could taste the promise of future on your lips
My hands spelled out in the creases of your back
Said exactly the same as you did before you left
Said please don't forget me
So please
Don't.

I am my //thoughts at 3 am // broken and shattered // within the silence // my mouth is shut // there is nothing to indulge // not even the air particles // It hurts so much // to feel // to sense // to even be human // to be me // actually.

I just want to // go home // but // I don't know // if it even ever // existed // I just want to get away from people // I hate // the temporariness // it 's wrapped around my neck // like a string // more like a rope // for // every tear that falls // from my eyes // my neck // my chest //my heart // my feelings  // burned relentlessly.

I want // to drive // I want // to breathe // I want to go // on a road trip // to the furthest destination // to a beach // with the darkest sky // the lightest shade //  turquoise sea // the brightest stars // to fulfill the night // I want to lay // on the beach // pretend // the sand in my life // didn't bury me // I didn't suffocate // I wanted to lay // there for so long // that I would // forget I exist // similar to // the way // I ignore my feelings // for so long// just so that I forget // how to feel.

Sometimes // I wonder why // wouldn't the stars // just fall in my arms // the future // the unknown //
I'm afraid // of drowning // once those feelings // become // too heavy.

everything is labeled // life is // like a side effect // slowly // killing me// I want to // seize many moments // replay them // I want to forget // and forget // just forget //  I am human // that // I once existed // leave no trace behind // disappear into the atmosphere //

I want // impossibilities // to turn // into realities // those thoughts // the scene of them // it could make // everyone // flee // I love to make them wonder // how long those lived // wandering // in my head // how I became // a prisoner in my own mind  // with my own will // I cant // flee // from the human // I am destined to be // I can // never have enough // wanting so much.