Garble gobble.

Sometimes I think about my old life.

I say it's old cos it's in the past but really,

Truly,

It's a year and a half ago.

That's all the time that's passed.

It's a second longer than that every moment I spend on this thoughtless thought-filled poem.

I think about the little cockroaches bursting with life, running around in my cupboard

And the bag of dirty clothes that wouldn't stop growing.

The unironed, smelly clothes I wore

On my unironed, smelly body,

The deodorant I hoped would cover up the truth

Like a mask.

But masks aren't really for hiding stink, are they?

I wonder if they could smell the depression on me.

That word isn't expressive enough.

I wonder if they could sense the stink of a being who no longer wanted to be.

Someone who'd given up a while,

Or as close as you can to it while

Staying alive.

After all, we only get one game over, as far as we know

And for some reason,

I didn't let it get me then and

Certainly won't now.

I think about the poets on this app and

In random bars

And hiding away in the dark in their rooms,

Terrified of the uncertainty that comes with the light outside

And I think about me.

I think about the me that existed a year and a half ago,

Covered in mental cobwebs that

Spun around me and tightened like ye ole sphincter

Till there was very little of me left

And I wonder how the hell they got me out of there.

My parents made it worse.

My sister stayed neutral.

Roommates came and went from the bottom barrel bastards to the

Beaming believers.

Help or a cure for the dying one,

They offered and I

Turned away each one.

They didn't fit me.

It was only The Alchemist within me that could've fixed that shit

But I had no idea what to do with all the broken pieces.

Life has been beautiful.

Life has been a pile of rotting, rancid garbage lit on fire.

My regrets means so little now.

Past in the rear view.

Future less scary now that it actually exists in my mind's eye again.

Some other version of me stayed in that place with the

Cockroaches in cupboards and

Peanut butter or bread, never combined, for a meal or two

Or none

Each day.

Some other me ended the game and slammed the book shut

Before I could find out what lay on the next chapter.

When I was a child, I was left behind.

Again and again.

Musicians just want to be heard.

Artists just want to be seen.

Writers want to be read.

It's a mess of things; using our creations to give the cracks in our foundations a

Name and place to rot in pieces.

But we do it anyway.

I've been so crushed.

By society, I thought.

By parents, I thought.

Till I realised I was the only one in my head.

The person feeding me all that bullshit is the same one holding this little device,

Seated on a purple bed at 3am,

Tired and a bit sweaty and a bit lonely and glad for the solitude and unsatisfied and satiated and

Alive.

Fuck the world and all I've ever felt it needed from me.

I'm going to let my heart do what it wills as I play the randomly selected, experience-based MC of my life

Until it kills me.