Between

The departure of my final affair with what became my obsession ignited an apathetic passion inside of me.

It was as though all I lived for was nothing. I was between two states of mind - that which yearned to fill my hunger with whatever I could find, and that which wished me to fade away and cease to exist. Mundane activities became of the utmost importance, it was a sense of ritualistic hostility that kept me functioning on a level I once thought was a form of recovery. I learned that this is not the case. I became dependent on them to justify my lack of self worth. They were the things I truly believed would bring me what I thought I desired most. I forced myself to drain all desire for the strange paradise that had transformed me, as painful as it was to even attempt to pretend I cared not. I instead painted an image of the girl I wanted to be, and clung to the vision I built around the boy I thought I could keep, though inside I knew he was never real.

So I waited for the return that never came to be. In that time a small seed of hate that had long since began to sprout began to snake its way into my life once more. Leaves and flowers glowered with a tangible aroma of spite, reminding once more that my futile attempt at peace was nothing more than a pitiful façade. Two powerful entities that ruled the woman who bore my flesh and fought for me without ever having asked for one thing in return were in turmoil. It was I and the shadows of her past, which left her vulnerable to the effects of untrue intentions. She long ago lost the will to fight for herself, and let the ocean of regret take her spirit. As a result she allowed herself to settle into a situation she knew all too well wasn't right, but she no longer had the sanity to let it go. Once the viscous nectar that was the truth of my reality became exposed to the light of day, a force thicker than the blood a mother could share with her daughter flooded the bridge between them. And so I fled, with the help of whom I can only describe as a light from the heart of the universe to guide me through a complete darkness, and her love and acceptance gave me the strength to walk away and not look back until I knew what I did was right. I was on my way back to the place where I grew as a child and was forced to abandon long ago, yet I became trapped in what I can only describe as the between.

Death

Once I was sent crashing back to Earth; boiled down and ejected into the thick, black atmosphere of my past life, I couldn't see anything in front of me. I still watched the world with the eyes I stole from my dream like state, and everything that used to make sense was lost in the translation of a hopeless wasteland. Since I no longer had a heart, I lost the will to fight for things I could care for. There was something important I used to have to do, but all things meaningful were dust in light of what had happened to me, and so I started to wander aimlessly into the shadows of apathy and denial. I left the school I once held so close to my intentions, three days of torturous projections into places I couldn't believe I ever wanted to go. I was once again what I always had been. Nothing.

Purged of all fulfilment, I went in search of other things to make my life pleasant. It was futile, though, as I sat and watched the sun that seemed brighter than I remembered, blinding almost, creep across the sky. It mocked me with its vibrant energy, seemingly endless and warm. I floated inside myself. I do not remember much about those days, just that I cried more than I should have. Loss is always hard to deal with, be it a person, place or thing.

Eventually the dream that stole my heart away faded, and my old life grew back over the surface of my existence, like mold. It was infectious and deadly. A new type of desire burnt my tired soul. That of the physical sort, arguably the most dangerous. My prey was much closer than it should have been, much easier to latch onto than necessary. It became a game, and when I won, it was more than I'd ever experienced before. I fed on the flesh of an unsuspecting victim, yet the tables turned as they always do, and it was I once again who lost it all. It was wrenched right out from under me, in almost a literal sense. My chest was emptied of my heart long ago, and now my bed was empty of my addiction.

What was this... I never knew. Pain is just the same whether you know what causes it or not. Either way all I knew between my awakening and my attachment was this: I was a dead person. A shell of what I'd used to be. My blood was cold and I'd submitted to being second best, using and letting myself get used, under a secrecy that was as transparent as my soul.

Forgotten

So I am a new person.

Well at least in a sense. Things have happened to me.

I had this dream once. I went on a trip across the world, and saw things I'd only ever imagined and seen on TV. It was a land of strange voices belonging to stranger people, shouting and laughing and crying, and they didn't have a care in the world except to simply be. Everything was moving so quickly and I hardly knew myself. Before I had the chance to make sense of where I was I had become a part of it; my heart melted right out of my chest and before I could gather it up and put it away it had seeped into the soil. My eyes glazed over and I was entranced. In love. I would have died to be born and live there. To taste and smell again the wonders I'd discovered in that seemingly non-existent paradise. To live and be free, happy as I once was as though nothing else in the world mattered. I suppose it's most fortunate that it was only a dream... or so it seems.

It is only after you truly fall in love that you know what it means to be lost. When the only thing you can associate with the word "whole" is taken away from you. Or worse, you're taken away from it. And in your heart of hearts you know one day you'll get back... you just don't know when or how. Until then life just pushes you along, and if you try to fight it it beats you down and drags you. Time slows down and suffocates you, it squeezes you until tears leak from your eyes like raindrops from the stomachs of swollen storm clouds. Equally frightening and equally as destructive. Yet you face your largest task: acceptance. I hate the word. It's such an easy word to push, so simple to say to someone yet so much harder to do. It does happen though, as it happened to me. Everything in between then and now is unimportant. What is important is what I wish to say about my life, little as it may be. I believe in words.