I don't want to be. I'm trading in my voice for a pen and my breath for some ink. I don't want to be.

I think I’m losing… I think I’ve lost my mind. I feel like a switch was flipped and I’m off the fucking deep end. My mind is going insanely fast yet I’m not thinking about anything. I’m hungry but everything has lost its taste. I’m thirsty but nothing feels hydrating. I feel exhausted yet all I do is sleep. I feel dizzy when I stand up and anxious when I sit down. Cigarettes don’t even do anything anymore. I’m fucked.

Inhale. Chance conversations. Chance connections. Great opportunities. Good friends. And in that moment, I forgot you existed. Exhale.

He fucks. He doesn't care. I hate him. I hate all that he is. He cheats. He steals. He lies. He has everything and wants more. He has love and fucks whores. I had love but no more. I now have hate and a locked door. I now have spite and an open sore. He has no guilt. I have guilt. He has no spine. Well, where the fuck is mine? He has time. She has mine. I envy him.

Your eyes open with a soft breath on your neck. You turn over in your bed to see nothing, no one, there. The room is a strange shade of blue that you’ve never seen before. It’s an uncomfortable shade of blue, heavy in tone and laden in a rough, unsettling context. You close your eyes but it remains just as vibrant and piercing. The eyes in your closest and the monster under bed have long since passed, like your childhood and your innocence. But alas, you still fear the unknown. You still fear the inevitable. You still fear the dark. You open your mouth but an unseen hand quickly covers it. Mocking you. Mocking your attempts to scream. You bite at it but bite your tongue instead. You retreat under your covers, convincing yourself that the cheap fabric will save you. You remain there, frozen. Begging for a feeling of comfort to cover you like the blanket you’re clinging to. You peer out from beneath your shelter to see that the night has passed. You’ve made it. Congratulations. Tomorrow’s another day. Tomorrow’s another night.

Shhh. You can’t say that. It’s not safe. How dare you think for yourself. Get back in line you ignorant little shit. You speak when I tell you to speak. You drink when I tell you to drink. You think when I tell you to think. You breathe… you sleep… well… you don’t do those things. Those aren’t necessary. I mean, seriously… it’s only your life.

How can something so tangible and understandable hold something so confusing and vast? How can a fucking piece of plastic, mounted on the wall, a pricks high-end luxury item which is flaunted and misused, a fucking number that wakes you from your rest hold the one thing that is in constant motion and is constantly changing? What happens when the clock stops? Time doesn’t cease to progress. Clocks in the physical sense are useless. They are solely there as a guesstimate of what time actually is. Everything continues exactly as it was. No change. I don’t understand time. One second, it could feel like situations and circumstances will last forever and the next second, you could blink and it all is over. Three and half years is nothing. Is it something? It means a hell of a lot to me. Fuck, I’m waiting for a day when I can understand this subject. I want an explanation as to why my mind is full to the point of bursting for weeks on end and my relaxing times are gone before I can let out a sigh of relief. Time is constant. That is one thing I am sure of. Time changes everything eventually. Well, it’s supposed to anyway. If you break the clocks to stop the time, make sure you’re firm in your decision whether it’s day or night.

I’m wake. Fuck.

7:30 A.M. starts the routine. I drag my sorry self out of bed, neglect to bathe, and search my floor for the same pair of jeans I’ve worn for a week. I look to my closet and see a mirage of shirts ranging in color, matching in design, all of which have been seen and over used. I stumble downstairs to a welcoming, “Good morning” from my mother. I rub my eyes. I pour myself some coffee and I head out the door. I sit in my car for a minute, allowing my mind to catch up with himself. I pick my soundtrack and I drive blindly until I reach my destination. I sit there until I feel compelled to move. Not much compels me to move lately. I move and zone out. I’m back in my car. I pick my soundtrack and I drive blindly until I reach my destination. I enter through the same door every day. I’m greeted with a welcoming, “How was your day?” from my mother. I rub my eyes. I retreat upstairs. I sit there until I feel compelled to move. Not much compels me to move lately. I pick my soundtrack. I zone out. 2:00 A.M. I lie wide-eyed in my bed. I recollect on the day’s events. All the stupid shit I did to make myself look like a fool. All of the conversations I had. All of the conversations I didn’t. “Tomorrow’s a brand new day.” I’ll keep telling myself that. I’ll keep trying to believe that. Zone out. Alarm screams. 7:30 A.M. starts the routine.

Bridges and balloons.

That concept has been destroying my mind for the past few weeks. Bridges and balloons. The pairing of words initially came from the song by Joanna Newsom. That concept of it though, bridges and balloons. They're two things that, in my mind, represent moving on. You cross a bridge and once on the other side, you've left all the nonsense behind you. Balloons are more of a stretch but if you think about it, it's far more permanent than a bridge. You can always walk back to the other side of the bridge but once you let a balloon go, it's gone. Sure, one could argue that the balloon could end up in a tree or some freak thing could happen where it's back in your possession and if that's the case, then it wasn't something you were supposed to let go of. Just think. It seems like steps. The bridge is the baby step in moving on because it's safe. You can always turn back and fall right back into your old ways. With a balloon, it's gone. There is no turning back. Once it's gone it's gone and you just eventually forget about it and move on with your life and find happiness and love and everything turns okay and you don’t ever feel sad and you don’t ever feel worthless and you don’t ever stay up all night and sleep all day in hopes of staying numb instead of feeling pain because you’re sick and goddamn tired of only feeling worthless and sad every fucking day of your waking life. It even penetrates your dreams sometimes. You rarely dream and then when you do, your mind says, “Fuck you!” and doesn’t allow you the decency of a deep, much needed rest. That’s what I’d fill my balloon with. Fuck air. Fuck helium. Fuck everything . My balloon is going to be over flowing with the screams of a lost boy looking to find some peace and sincerity and once it can’t possibly hold anymore, I’ll throw it at the sky in an attempt to make it fly faster. I know that it won’t but I’ll do anything to make it go away. I’d do fucking anything to be able to sleep. I'd do anything to cough up all these words that I've been choking on for so long. I'd do anything to just... breathe.

All I need now is a fucking balloon.