If there were a pill for the grey I might honestly consider it... I wouldn't care if the happiness were artificial. If they made happy pills to erase the memory of fear, I would take them and face death with a smile. If they made a treatment for the grey, I would never need reality again.

What is light without the shadows it casts?

It's funny how my understanding of object permanence tends to suffer.

This... this. Psychological continuity and persistence of memory and all that. Things are different but things are the same. Where does the past go?

the thawing out

the winter came just when we knew it would,
when the trees had been barren
for so long that they began to fade
into the endless skeletal grey that was everything
and it took the first shimmering frost
to remind us that they were still there and still growing
long after the fiery hues of autumn had cooled,
but now that winter is here
one begins to feel apathy toward the blues and whites as well

  every room is heated until the inside glows red
but this is not the red of the autumn leaves I longed for
and then forgot
but something entirely new,
artificial, one could say

  after the first snowfall the salt trucks made rounds,
their only remedy to lower the freezing point
of something already frozen
I still slip every time I walk home

  "this is a better winter than most," 
people tell me,
but the cold still hurts
the summer will come soon enough,
I remember,
and then I will miss the ability to sit quietly inside

  winter pushes us all into close quarters,
but I have nothing to say to these people who have nothing to think
and everything to believe
we’re a well matched pair, her and I,
each of us will always have the light on while the other is trying to sleep

  the chill has been dragging on for months
and at this point,
the pavement is white and it isn’t even from snow

but now
after five long sleepless nights 
I open my eyes and realize
the winter is finally thawing out

if I burn out today, I won't burn out tomorrow- right? right? is it possible to save all your breakdowns for the weekend?

On the day laid waste

I no longer require three large spoonfuls of sugar in my tea, and that is how I know I am growing up.

I had a rather bad day not too long ago. I had been rushing down a corridor on the eighth floor of a building, exhausted to the point where Reality bent, when it occurred to me that had only the plate-glass windows that lined the halls had latches, I could so easily jump and let that be that and perhaps it would be proper. The little ghosties in my head would not let me have my thoughts to myself so I shut them in with me and did not leave my room again for about another eight hours, at which point I realized that I had neither eaten nor spoken all day. It's quite simple to just let time pass, to curl up in your bedsheets and feel it ravage your mind. I have decided to take better care of myself, though. I will not let other people's voices become ghosties in my head, I will do what is best for myself without contemplating their disapproval.

I have realized that it is better to expend the physical energy to leave a draining situation than to exhaust half of my mental energy to sit paralysed and shut everything out. This experiment in loyalty must have those bounds at least.

Good night.