The Incurable Affliction

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I’m afloat in the pale, red reverie that separates dreams from daylight. 

Evading the daily rebirth into sameness, it is in this undecided delirium that I thumb through the pages of my life. 


And as I do, clarity cuts me deeper than the papercuts. 

 

It burrows beneath my skin and gnaws on my bones. Then it ties my tongue and siezes my vision, before stealthily settling into the depths of my soul like a cold, calculating creature of the sea. I must lure it out and spear it right through the heart. For that, these words must cut deeper.


But as the pages flail and flutter, the sentences seem to be struggling to drag themselves home. The words hang on as long as they can, before collapsing under the weight of the author’s ineptitude. Before I’m drawn back into a slumber, I pry my eyes open.


The unremarkable glow of this early winter morning is meekly attempting to colour the walls of the room. A familiar cooing belts out from the niche underneath the window, where a pigeon is overstaying its welcome. It peers at me with beady little eyes, poised for flight, but having ascertained my indifference, goes back to clumsily arranging its rickety nest. My seething critique of its craft stems out of envy, because unlike the uninvited visitor, my programming doesn’t tell me what to build with the straws that I’m grasping at. 


My mind thinks of things to think of, and my eyes seek sights to see. But after minutes of oppressive silence, accentuated occasionally by mindless cooing, I’m left with an epiphany that rudely jolts me awake. 


The world which was once my muse, is now too self assured to walk with me. Dawn seems to be sculpted from stone while the afternoons scream in blinding arrogance. Indifferent evenings fade into taciturn twilights and night is nothing more than the absence of light. 

Today, even the vermillion embrace of the December sun was met with a cold shoulder. 


I know my old muse won’t answer, but with naive hope I ask,

Why does the sky feel like a ceiling ?

And the ground so fickle and frail.

Why do the birches bend and sway no more?

Its leaves so inert and pale. 

Is the horizon growing closer?

Have the stars already set sail?

What does the sickly breeze bring today?

Is that birdsong or a whimpering wail?

This has been declared as a death by definition 

Is clarity an incurable affliction?


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