Written while eating ice cream, wrapped in a towel with wet hair after a shower.
There’s a layer between I and everything else. Thin, transparent, and impossible to peel off. It’s like even when I’m present, I’m elsewhere. Everything passes through me. I shower, but the water doesn’t touch me. I no longer care about the cleanliness that follows, or the way my hair smells nice afterward. I talk to people I love and say the right words. But nothing seems to reach me. Even when I’m doing something I enjoy, there’s monotony behind it. Nothing lands, it’s all approximation. When I look in the mirror, there is a delay. My face stares back, and I wait for it to tell me who I am, but it doesn’t. It looks like a person I used to be. Or maybe someone I never was.
Time slips away. I lose hours without sleeping and I sleep without resting. There are entire days I live as a blur. Even when I don’t consume anything mind-altering, I still recall the previous day as if I was drunk.
I don’t feel real. It’s like I’ve been muted, like something essential has been switched off years ago. Feels almost ancient. I feel like a ghost.
See, I don’t feel real most of the time. But I keep waking up. I guess not actively dying still counts for something. Also, the ice cream was okay.
My Static collection might appeal to you as well.
