There’s a void inside my soul, a suspended space that is named apathy.
It has thrust me into lust, and ragged impulsiveness, and my darkest demon: sobriety.
Apathy, like the gardens of Babylon, doesn’t actually exist; it is literal nothingness.
So I’m always on the lookout for risk, something to plunge me from restlessness into recklessness.
And to make the aggressive dreams subside, I search
the seams for any loose threads of dopamine.
When I’m trapped behind the bars in this void, I cry out until my throat bleeds, but nobody can hear me scream.
It comes after the beauty of distraction: I have places to go and people to see.
When that’s all over, I’m left with just me and the numbness of my reality.
It’s like a raven-black weighted blanket; it drapes over me like a cloak of melancholy.
I’d rather be in agony with every heartbeat
than be trapped in my personal purgatory.
Or on the other side, bathing in euphoria, warm and heavenly,
where my demons, like hellhounds, are my sworn soldiers I hold on leads.
In the abyss, they start tearing me
to shreds, forgetting their oath to always protect me.
There are mercurial medicines, but they are temporary, like angelic paintings that turn out to be fake.
Nothing but poisonous lies, a hoax, almost always a mistake that feels like floating in a rapturous, blissful, warming lake.
I meet other lost souls down there… searching for either euphoria or pain.
We exchange the stories of our wounds and realise we are not alone; there’s hope in others feeling the same.