I don’t know how to move forward in a world where I no longer exist. A world in which I find myself ill-equipped to function, shorn of all my sorrows and trussed to succeed… A world that is spotless, sanitized, insipid... devoid of any soul.

I arise from dreams only to discover that I’m still bound in chains to the world departed. What purpose did those dreams serve anyway? Were they meant to be carriers for all the unlived lives inside my veins? Or were they the pallbearers that will finally lay me down to rest? Should I order a marker for my grave or would I rather spend eternity as anonymously as I do my waking hours?

They say that every person you meet has the potential to change you forever. What they forgot to mention was that this is just an urban myth. People rarely have the power to transform you, you do that to yourself, in ways you could never imagine, over time and around space, over every single step you never take. I used to think that you would change me. I used to believe that you had the power to rewire my soul and that together we would create our own one-dimensional reality. I was wrong but then I was right… You did restructure me but not before I handed you the code.

I thought I’d left you behind, between the lines that inched across the blank space of my mind. Yet, here you are now, circling these hollows not carved by me. The stench of betrayal descends upon the papery thin skin that barely holds us together. And all the little lies that you so lovingly spewed over time have crystallized into brilliant barnacles for you to brandish. I remember it all… those promises you made but did not keep, all the shiny bright things you plucked out of someone else’s tresses to adorn my bald head… I suckled on them all like a newborn babe, stupid and delirious, hungry and hopeful, mad with the idea of possibility.

Come talk to me now. Tell me how much you enjoyed spinning those yarns with me at the centre and you out on the sidelines, with a tight hold on the reins. Show me how I shivered in delight at the mere mention of things that could be. Tell me how it made you smile when I played the perfect fool for all your well-heeled moves. Show me how you controlled my tear ducts, stopping the flow with each carefully scripted untruth. Remind me how my impulses succumbed to those precious lies that I believed to be true. And they were breathtakingly beautiful, the lies as well as the lips that they sat upon so seductively. At least you took the trouble to lie. I’ll give you that.