The sickness thrives inside me, vented by curt words and hard glares. It coddles my fears, nurturing them to giddy, mad laughter. It skewers me with its blunt tip, doubling me, aghast in fury that startles me too much to speak, when it promises to lance the boil that holds, bloody and festering, a lifetime of memories and pain. I want to cry out and revel in it. I want to hunker down and sob. I want to know something that is true other than this moment in time. The questions that voice themselves in babbling gibberish, the premonitions I fear to explore, the love I am incapable of, the pleasure I bask in, knowing nothing but that there is a knife poised to sink into my back. Lust for the gratification of my every desire stifled by dread. Can I see? Can I speak one word that would not betray what I do not wish to know, what loiters at the edge of my consciousness. “Not enough, never enough, never enough.” I believe those are the words I cannot voice.
Tell me! Tell me one thing I would believe when I would believe anything that you say should it not dash my hopes that this is . . . real? No. The chuckles surface. This is not real, not my life, not another’s either, but the time between the moments when I seek to control, steer, and observe myself dispassionately. Tell me something I can mutate to meet my expectations, to match my knowledge of what you think of me, you who judge, you who lie for your own pleasure. Tell me this is not true: you hate me and love me. Are you real? Are you this person without me? Do you owe yourself to me then, your existence? Do I allow you to be real, even as I mock you? Don’t lie to me. You do not know this world. Your own petty ■■■■■■■ loves, sorrow, and concern. Can it compare with the desire to be everything, to consume the world with the flame that burns within you, always failing, always left alone, always mocked and derided by the voices that call you evil as you spread across the night?
I am one. You are a voyeur. I am one. Deplore it, but know anyway that there is no other. Lo, your arrogant dismissiveness. It will birth your fears, or perhaps I will to amuse you and spite myself. Is there meaning here or only form? Both. Trust me. There is both.