Something is always missing, of course. But it shouldn't be, it really, really shouldn't be. There's something wrong even when nothing is wrong. Because i'm obsessed and vain and selfish and lazy. It used to be one of my favorite quotes; All writers are, at their core, vain selfish and lazy. It's true. I can feel it in the weight of my eyelids now, a body that wants nothing more than to lie still and go through the same motions of today, tomorrow, subtle variations that don't play to the right soundtrack and words spelled out in the air in invisible light paintings. Big tipped paintbrushes soaked and bleeding into the air, letters that nobody will ever read. Because it's a front, it's all merely a front. I'm so good at creating these facades, these false illusions of happiness that seem to radiate out from every smile and fingertip, guzzling jubilation until it bubbles up from my chest, spilling out and coating everything around me in merriment. But it's only a front if i let it be. Sometimes it's true and i believe with every little piece of myself that this is right and this is it and there's not the slightest bit of doubt or fear or regret or anything other than exhilaration in knowing, just knowing that it's completely and utterly right. Right now i don't know. Those are powerful words, those three. I don't know. Loaded despite their will power and destiny ripped away in a repetition of a trite easy way out. I don't know. Fuck sake, no more of this. No more of this uncertain cry from something more. Just fucking do something. This isn't about inspiration, this isn't about waiting for the right moment or the right time, rather jumping into the rain wet and cold and unexpected fast in rivers on bare skin and soaking through cotton. This is impulsiveness and elation and freedom and the thrill of life delicious on my tongue like unexpected orange bites in dark cocoa chocolate, like green tea scented soap or silk covers against skin flushed from a shower. Unrealistic expectations and burning desires that clench desperately at thin air, great tides of pent up insecurity and emotion churning in the pit of my stomach, clawing my insides to shreds. i'm so obsessed with this concept of reality, with these big words and ideas that don't mean anything. Not really. I'm always aspiring to this unattainable something, without knowing quite what it is. So i sit here, epic battles raging violently within me as i stare blankly out the window. All the passion and the anger and the violence and the insecurity and misery and the desperation, it's all being wasted. All the deliberation and great debates over what constitutes art renders me speechless, because this is it, we are living, breathing, lustful examples of art, we are walking emotion and life drinks deeply from our misery before churning us round and spitting us out. All this agonizing over unhappiness without realising that this is it, this is life

all of your pieces fill up other people's holes, but they don't fill up your own.

months blur together, days crawling lethargically across one another in an endless miserable stretch. My mind is drained of reason and my conscience decides to look the other way while i trudge dutifully through life, pushing aside anyone who ever implied they might care.
why
i really couldn't say
Some people have defining moments in their lives, a tragic accident or a horrific break up that left them distraught, ripping their hearts out and shredding their insides.

i don't have any excuse.
It's like i woke up one morning and i had disappeared, a cloaked figure robbing me of my happiness.

Shedding all emotion leaves you empty, starved of feeling. It's nice, you know. When someone rises up to hurt you and you stand there blankly as they rain insult upon insult on your cold, hardened skin. It's nice not to hurt, to be able to look the other way as the people around you suffer.

Eventually though, the world we build for ourselves starts to crumble. Walls we built from the ground slip through our fingers and we sit helplessly in confusion and misery as our defense mechanism slows to a halt.
It's almost amusing how much it confuses us.
how can we be hurting?
we never let anyone in, we never opened up. Our lives were foolproof.
spirits laugh as we flounder pathetically in our own misery.
The deepest wounds we get aren't the ones from other people hurting us. They are the wounds we give ourselves when we hurt other people.
Being empty doesn't mean that if you're held underwater you won't drown.

faded and thin, like a letter too often read

grief is a house
where the doors no longer let you
in
or out

We blurred at the edges, it and me. Together we became one big seeping, crawling thing.

sadness hums quietly through my insides as i stare blankly at the wall.
Sometimes i feel like i'm drowning. I'm kicking and screaming whilst i splash hopelessly about in giant oceans of sadness. Giant bodies of water that seem to open up from below and swallow me whole.
I scream for help, of course.
Nobody hears me though. If they do, they don't let on.

of course.

I try and make sense of it all in my head sometimes. The way those fleeting moments of happiness can lift you up so high, yet all it really does is create a further distance to fall.
I wanted you. I wanted you more than I've wanted anything else in my life.
(lying on your bed smoking and giggling as you sang to me, in between kisses)

i spent my whole life searching for happiness and suddenly there it was. Staring out at me as i tumbled from one giddy day to the next, smothered in love and buttered with affection.
I drop my hairbrush on the floor and it clatters loudly. I open the fridge too quickly and the milk rocks precariously on the edge of the shelf before spilling to the floor. I mess up.
You stand silently on the other side of the room.
i'm standing in the ocean and it swallows me up.

of course.

if sadness was a sea, i would surely drown

you're hurting me.
it hurts.
i am neither here nor there.

You smile obliviously, eyes focused as you stack shelf upon shelf. You chatter on obliviously, loud voiced as you  light fire after fire. You turn to me for comfort, miserable as you drive knife after knife through my chest.
we are not friends.
we are not lovers.

We're both reaching for the remote and you're laughing and i'm laughing and we're both laughing and  happiness is enshrouding us and our skin is hot with excitement.
You tumble into the darkness.
i am caught. Balanced on the very edge of the cliff, hanging in the balance between light and dark.
You don't want me. The darkness pulls at me anyway.
You want me. The light is familiar.

We are not friends.
we are not lovers.

We both tumble forward into darkness.

stars are blind

It hurts, but people don't understand that of course. Their eyes flicker and they watch the sad and frail figure trudge silently down the stairs. They shake their heads and mouth quiet conversations about misguidance to each other when they think we can't hear.
It's so frustrating that they stare so intently, yet they still can't see.
Misguidance is everywhere. Misguidance is nothing. Misguidance is irrelevant.
Self loathing is so blatant. It stares at you in the mirror, glaring in disgust at all your ugliness out there for everyone to see.
Hatred cradles you.

Self hatred wraps itself around your core and takes one agonizing bite at a time until you're crippled from the inside.

You were the tape for the holes that pierced my heart. The tape that wound its spell around my soul and lulled me into false security. You exposed me. Ripped open my flesh and let the world see how my insides worked.
Then you left.

the ocean grew between us

it hurts even though it shouldn't. We fucked everything up without even meaning to. You saunter off into the distance and leave me trailing behind, mere mortal being slipping silently between life and nothingness. I am the light behind your eyes, the space between your thighs, daylight shining through. You used to write our story in the sky, sweet words studded with stars and comets. Our story used to be great.

Now we

are

Empty spaces. Meaningless words dotted in the air like crumbs. Full stops dunked in misery and comfort coffee.
you and i and everything that lies between us.
time plus eternity.