(Why do you look at drinking as such a nasty thing?)

Oh, no reason.
It’s a silly little beverage,
That twisted and turned,
My childhood to shambles,
All because it was who ‘he’ was.

Oh, you’re right,
I’m just being dramatic,
It was just my innocence,
After all,
Silly me.

Why is it,
That something so necessary,
Seems so dreadful and bittersweet?

Why am I so sad,
Over moving on from,
Something that made me so sad?

Why do leaves fall of the trees?
Why do hairs fade to grey?
Why do things fail to remain consistent?

Why can’t I live forever?
Why can’t I seem to want to?
Why can’t this fear of change make sense?

Change,
A dwarf sucker of emotional algae,
These bits of change that we face,
In life,
Are merely a placeholder for temporary discomfort.

What right do you have to lie there so beautiful,
So far away?

I am bathed in the shadow of your gaze as I write this,
And trying to follow the map of grief drawn, to meet you.

Transport me, my glimmer, to your dissociative place.
We'll sit there in silence.

Unable to feel
Unable to do the things you love
Everything is boring
Nothing is fun
Nothing brings joy
You're just existing
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
The next day?
Your next vacation?
A new job?
A relationship?
Nothing will bring true joy anyway
It all last for mere seconds, days at most
and dissipates eventually
It's hard to verbalize
what its like in this mind
in this body
To not enjoy anything
To not enjoy the things you used to love
To need the stinging feeling of a razor across your skin
to feel clarity
To not love food the same way you used to
To want to sleep at 7:30 pm every night
because what's the point in staying up any longer
when there is nothing to do, nothing to enjoy
To sleep as much as you can to escape reality
People say to love yourself, focus on you
but how can you focus on you when it isn't enjoyable to
when there is nothing to uplift yourself for
when the focus turns into getting to bed
as soon as possible?

I can't stand myself. I'm scared that if I let myself think, I'll spiral so far down that I'll never come back up for air. I don't want to be crazy. I don't. I don't want visions from God. I don't want to see the cameras, check the locked door six more times, shake when the tires veer too close to the curb. I don't want to scream every time I see my reflection blink. I don't want to see my reflection blink. How do I convince myself that I still have time to build a life worth living when I lose myself every day in my delusions? Will I one day stop returning to reality? Will I still have time to build a life worth living if I don't? Do I live in the rot, let it consume me and wait to forget, or do I make something of myself, just to lose it the next time I have an episode? I lose hours talking to myself. I lose myself in the hours in between. And I'm terrified to lose everything. I religiously keep receipts and old packaging, mementos of every average Tuesday evening, because what if what if what if? What if I reach thirty and do not remember being twenty two? What if this is all I have to remember that I had a life before I lost it? What if I don't reach thirty and this collection of memories is the only thing left of me? Does a person's potential die when their mind begins to lie, or when they begin to believe it? I don't know if I have psychotic episodes anymore. It's more like episodes of lucidity to break up my average day of hiding from the NSA or my landlord or my neighbor or the ghosts or the devil or God or my mother or myself. Will I ever be a real person? If I build a life worth living, will I have my mind long enough to settle into it? I look to the future and there's a fog I can't quite see through. I'm afraid when I get there, that the past will look the same.