Is it strange that I can’t fall asleep? Two or three hours a night and then a day I don’t want to see. Is it strange that the sound of a baby’s rattle reminds me of machine guns? Or that spirits in my head laugh at my words when I speak? That I hear music in my head when I’m alone in my room and that it’s always at its peak?
Is it normal that I don’t feel like talking to all the people I meet? The things they say seem irrelevant and discussions seem weak. I find it hard to believe that everyone else is fine. They probably know how to cope. Energy in their veins, every dialogue, every line. What will it take to break from this? This isn’t how I used to be. There used to be a time when kisses were stolen and love was free.
I wish I could find a way to turn back the time. To when I was younger, maybe eight or nine. When things were good and my grades were fine and it was easy to get some sleep at night. Sure, no one liked me and my hair was weird. I dressed funny and I couldn’t grow a beard. My accent was strange and I didn’t know the language. But I persevered and learned until I could understand it.
It all seemed so bright – the future and its mystery. And so even though my face was dark and blistery, I felt like I was in the right place, somehow it made sense. Each word heartfelt, each step, each pace.
They say you shouldn’t approach a lion if you aren’t one yourself. But what am I to do if I was born a gazelle? Do I sit in the shadows and wait for them to hunt me? Or step into the sun and run wild, run free?
Do I set down my ego, like a broken shield and sword? Take off my armour and climb aboard. Retreating from battle, never to see it again, and sit alone in my room with a pen for a friend.
At what point do comets lose momentum and die? Stop roaring through asteroids in the minds of our skies? Turning cold at the thought of a never ending pursuit, a lonely course through a desolate route?
The roses begin to wither away, between the pages of our books while our thoughts are at play. Forgotten, dried and drained of all colour. When all it really needed was the love of another. But a dried out flower is a thing of beauty. It’s what we’ve been taught, you cannot refute me. What is love without loss? Strenth without rust? Peace without chaos and dawn without dusk?
A broken man is a symbol of construction. Perhaps a better man shall begin to rupture through the rough exterior of the hardened concrete.
All that’s left to do is leap.
Atomic Oblivion 