queued

Where are you now that I’m in the dark? Another languid notion sets fire to my arm, albeit a weak fire, and I raise that withering limb through the gloom, up to my face, where fingers proceed to kneed at the bread dough flesh of my clammy cheeks. You’re still not here, and the absence would be nearly too much for me too bear – if I were actually capable of caring in this state.

One more, I think, and a new energy flares up from within, sending my other hand groping in the drawer of the bedside table. I withdraw a bottle of pills, wrench open the top, and shake a number loose, feeling them cascade down about the exposed flesh of my chest.

Just one more, I think, frantically snatching up at least five of the little suckers before throwing them into my mouth. Swallow. All good. You’re still not here, and I’m still in the dark. But at least I’m not alone, swimming in a sea of multicoloured pills, tablets, and capsules.

I think I sleep. At some point. I sleep through troubling dreams of eternal absence, and an ethereal existence devoid of companionship and true, no, unfeigned attachment. Even in dreams I am without you.

A shaky kneed wandering through waste high grass along a cold mountain pass, continually weakened by a distinct lack of

what is it?

flare. That fire from within. You’ll wander because you lack direction, and you lack direction because you can not give up this desire for wandering. Feedback loop. Crackling static broadcast out to the stars. Schizoid delusions. Distinct lack of

what the fuck is it now?

a distinct lack of

out with it, man!

self. A distinct lack of purpose plaguing your continued pseudo reality. No bloody idea of who you are, only who you’d like to be. Always the dreamer, you trudge along through the wastes searching for something, anything, that will set your mind at ease.

A shaky need wandering through the waste high thoughts of an overwrought unconscious, growing ever distant, lost in a

no, not again. Can’t you stay on track for even one thought?

lost in a

in a

come the fuck on already!

feedback loop.

I’m awake, and my hand is madly clutching the telephone handset to my ear, and the droning buzz of nothingness on the line gets increasingly louder. I’ve no number to call, so I let the handset fall to the floor where shadows swallow up even the sound.

I’ve no number to call, no-one to talk to, so I swallow a few more pills and wait for the day. Wait for the day, when the sun comes out and life returns to this lonely side of the planet. Wait for the day, when dysfunction moves out and regret moves in. Wait for the day, when I return to my place in this existence, wedging myself into normal just right so that no-one is the wiser.

Where are you now that I’m in the dark? One thought replaces another, perfectly, seamlessly, so that there’s not even an overlap. Only a waking cascade of ideas, burn-through from the unconscious onto the subconscious and outward. Queued. Waiting to be spoken by these sickly lips to your absent ears.