It’s an escape. An attempt at freedom from the claws of your mind, digging into your flesh and dragging you down an endless pit of emotion and pain. The desperate calling of your self-tortured mind trying to get help while feeling like you’re surrounded by thorns that no one can get past.
It’s a saviour. Arriving in the form of your soul’s happiness, chasing away the problems of your reality like a hero. Until the wrath of life shakes you awake again, you grow in the shadows of myth, biding your time until it’s your moment to shine through the fog that lurks in your head.
It’s an illusion. Disguising the facts with fantasies that distract you from all the troubles of truth. Hiding your tomorrow with today, you can’t get past the brick wall, for the storm protects you by covering the entrance to the tunnel of sorrows.
It’s a hobby. Something to pass time by forgetting time, a form of relaxation to ease the pain of devastation that your daily life is. Like a series of unfortunate events going round and round in an unlimited cycle, limiting your resilience and dulling your resistance.
It’s a friend. An island of comfort and joy in a sea of pain and misery. They don’t understand why you want to leave your paradise, but the expectation is that you make the effort to survive. They make you think: is it fair to call it surviving, when you’re just an empty husk – dead inside – covering it up with your mask?’
It’s a distraction. The very thing you fill yourself up with to flush out the bad, the thing you obsess over so not to stray back to the familiar grounds of despair. When everything you’ve bottled up starts to shake like an earthquake, the tsunami of stress pushes all other thoughts out to make room for what you call recovery.
It’s a heart. Beating at the centre of everything you say, do and think. Like the day needs night, good needs bad, light needs dark - head needs heart. You feel as though your mind might explode, so your heart keeps beating steadily to support the weight of your world.
It’s a lure. A bait set out to catch the monster that lives inside you, watching you, controlling you, making you struggle. It sets you free from the chains the beast has around your neck, although the damage done will forever stream down your sight in the form of blood.
It’s a lie. You hang on to it like a lifeline because it’s the code to your life’s storyline, hiding the truth of your failure and worthlessness by feeding you joy and happiness in those few hours it lasts –where you can cower while admiring its beauty. Covering up the truth with mists of poison, fooling you into thinking you are free while the trap is only temporary, and the monster will be back. Over and over again, the tide overtakes your island paradise, forcing you to swim with the sharks. The hero turns out to be a twisted version of love, the illusion fades with the weakening storm, the thorns are obscured by roses putting anyone who tries to help you in danger of getting stabbed. All distractions have a time limit, you have to wake up from the dream eventually, all hearts stop beating at some point, and once all you care about is gone… all you can do is hope someone sees past your mask before it’s too late, and your heart stops too.