if you tell me that you want to know
what it’s like to live the way that I do,
I will laugh to myself, because
the truth is you don’t want to know.

you don’t want to live the way
that I live, or feel how I feel.

and even if you did, you can’t.
you can hear about it
and learn about it,
but you can never feel
the way that I do.

don’t keep trying to understand
the way that my mind operates.
don’t keep trying to feel like me.

be thankful that you can’t.

but if you must know,
imagine this:

it’s early in the morning
and you’re at the end of a dream,
or maybe a nightmare.

you’re kind of awake,
but not quite. you’re groggy.
you haven’t gotten out of bed yet,
and you don’t feel like it.

and then you hear your
alarm clock going off,
and you realize, oh ****,
you’re late to work.

you need to get up now
and you know that.
but when you try to,
you suddenly can’t.

you’re stuck in your bed,
unable to even open your eyes.
you’re not paralyzed.
you seem physically fine,
but you’re stuck there.
you have an overwhelming
need to wake yourself up.
you don’t know why you can’t.

you’re stuck in your bed for so long,
you begin to think that maybe
the dream that you’re in is now real.
maybe the real world isn’t there anymore. you can’t think of a logical explanation.
it doesn’t make any sense.

yesterday, you woke up
and got out of bed, and you
made it to work on time.
you were even a few minutes early.
there was no problem at all.

but wait, how long ago
was yesterday?
you don’t know
if yesterday was yesterday,
or if yesterday was a year ago.

you’ve been stuck here,
frozen in your bed while
the earth keeps spinning.
you have no way of knowing
what’s going on
in the world around you.

you know that this feels wrong.
you should’ve been able
to start your day.
you shouldn’t be stuck.

you know that you can’t
be living in a dream.
that’s not possible.

you know you’re not asleep.
you’re wide awake, but you’re stuck.
you can’t scream. you can’t move at all.
you’ve lost control over your body.
you can’t wake yourself up.

imagine that no matter what you do,
you can’t wake yourself up.

I just want to disappear
Or maybe for someone to hear
Or perhaps something to hold dear

But honestly I won't get anything here

I know of the world
But I do not exist in it
Floating in inky black
Enveloping her edges
Devoid of bright
Darker than night
It was my home
To the ends I roamed
Until into that flight
I found a light
Just right
For me.....

"how's it going?" she asks.
i stare out the window at the parking lot below,
realizing the inevitability of human toil.
i look up at her and smile,
"fine."

I wonder: Can the „I“ be fixed whilst being a „we“?
Or will you fix yourself, reducing myself to just me?
Will that, then, be forever so?
Will you take what‘s yours and left of you and go?
I will have neither options nor choices,
I‘ll be stripped of what I value and cherish.
What will be left? Echoes of distant voices
from a fairer past that once was but now did perish.

Most of all I‘ll hope for one thing, should it ever be this way:
That you could master to respect and love yourself; every coming day.

A summer dress, perhaps
deserves a summerish redress.

In the witching hour, solitude's domain,
there is naught but
I, and the white-hot eclipse for my eye.

I have one hand beneath your neck,
and another behind your knees.
In these gloves, I will drown and resurrect
my fair dress, one-and-only Sunday Best,
sodium hypochlorite cocktail mess.
My alternative hydrotherapy
is a remedy from my enemy.

You traffic through this well of hell in ease.
A fire drunken on the Lethe.
Deliquesce in clinical scents.

Your skin thrives on the purge,
but mine cannot survive.

I've always found comfort
in your darkness.
The cold, heavy shroud
you invisibly drape around me
in times of weakness
and despair.

It feeds on the emptiness
that surrounds my heart and soul
with more and more emptiness.

Nobody can understand
the comfort I get
from this seemingly
unending sorrow.

But alas -
it is only temporary comfort.
Once I let go
of these dark shrouds,
I will finally see
the promise of a
better tomorrow;
but most importantly -
a better me.

Who wants to go get therapy,
expose all of those darker
pieces that are broke in half,
then reapplied to the darker side
of my glass figurine
that got smashed to smithereens.

Who wants to talk about my teen years
of hormonal chaos that cost me
so many nights of tears, anxiety,
and snot that made me cough.

I’d prefer not to be disturbed
by revisiting the pain existing
in memories I have put behind me,
so, I think I’ll pass on that whole
talking and letting go, so I can grow
and get better therapy scene.