lacquered in dark
2:45AM. I can’t sleep. Blackout curtains but a floodlight of thoughts. The worry never stops to rest. The fear is constant, a forever loop of fight or flight. The fan freezes. The blankets break a sweat. Uncomfortable in skin and sheets, unable to find a place to rest my head. Beating myself up for getting it wrong time and time again, following the rules but never getting rewarded. Wondering where I went wrong. Replaying, pontificating, retaliating, a revolving door of desperation and dissonance. A lifetime of empathy, education, and extrapolation…yet still empty.
Unconsciously cutting myself down while simultaneously self-aware of my struggles. In a limbo of lethargy and liveliness. Manic yet morose. Lonely yet unavailable. Alive but not by much. Is it all in my head? Am I living in an illusion, constructing dreams of dark days, or is this world really a nightmare? I slip between lucidity and Lunesta-like hazes of thought and fright.
People don’t want me. Companies don’t want me. I have slipped through the cracks of the universe, a smear of potential bogged down by bitterness. I don’t know how to find my way out and I don’t think I even want to anymore. My body limps along but my heart and soul have all but given up. I’m lonely, scared, and exhausted. And I would just like to go to sleep. I long to lie down to relax and be lacquered in that deep, decadent dark. To pierce the other side in order to finally find satisfaction.
But I’m constantly kept up by the nagging notion that, although I walk upright with my eyes open, I’ve never really been awake.
Brannon Writes 