Feelings of a Lonely Stranger

Sinking

Everyone in the house is asleep.

Except for me.

Everyone in the house is alive

Except for me.

There is a lump in my throat that appears as the pale moonlight slips through the cracks, every night, without failure.

The hollow ache that makes weary my beaten body, seeps through the thin cotton of the sheets. Summer sheets, although summer had long since become Autumn.

I didn't notice the shift in temperature, colour, scent. I don't notice much anymore. Only the labored pumps of my dull heart as it falls further and further down into the murky depths of my ribcage.

I am without purpose, without reason to respire as I do. I am trapped in my bewildered state, destined to be held in my utter despair for the remainder of my existence. I hope it will be short.

I lack the ability to do anything but wallow, worry, and weep. When will it end? Perhaps never.

No fire burns in my furnace, yet ash coats the inside of my skin, chalky and stubborn.

My limbs are lead, my hopes are dead, my mother said, my mother said, my mother said. What did she say? I've forgotten. I don't remember the last time we spoke.

To let people know would be to let them put weight on the creaking, unstable framing. I'm not sure it would sustain the flood that was sure to bash against it as I spilled my guts. So I could not.

The support would surely crumble, knock my feet out from under me, wash me away.