The Days are Dark, The Nights are Bright

The water is still, clear and piping hot. Water slowly drips from the tap, rippling the stagnant water, gently bobbing my genitals; mimicking motion sickness, I calm my breathing. My body is exposed, every flaw vulnerable, the view unsightly, disgusted the pitches of black is subjected to this view. I feel my skin is flushed pink from the heat under the warm cinnamon tones that cover by entire body. A bead of sweat trickles down my forehead and threatens to sting my eye turning it the same colour as my burning, inflamed skin. The weightlessness and the heat of the water is the closest I get to feeling my heartbeat. The sinus rhythm confuses me as I feel the pulse against my skin. Is the temperature too hot or is it actually my heart I can feel, forcing blood through my viens, creating patterns in my sight?

Either way, it’s the only connection I have to feeling alive.

It’s dark, only the milky white-grey light from the moon shines through the solitary open set of blinds in my self made prison of thought. The monotonous hum of the fridge provides the soundtrack for this sombre and almost lifeless space. Giving into my subconscious, I create the environment of emptiness, desperately trying to comprehend why it hurts so good. My breathing syncopates and fills the environment, kicking the arse of tinnitus, defending my ears against ringing silence. Interspersed with “fuck offs” and slamming doors, the floorboards creak up above me, while the machine washing the clothes of the chavs upstairs threatens to drop down into my kitchen, rattling the solid red brick walls of my 1950’s build flat, dislodging and skewing my framed prints; the sirens from ambulances tending to the local druggies, homeless and cold on the harsh and unforgiving London streets is their own chance of warmth, the flashing blue lights of the racist and consciously biased police illuminate my cage, chasing the boy racers speeding furiously, burning rubber and weed and cracking the tarmac, cock swinging with their shotgun passengers, epitomising the scrubs T-Boz, Left-Eye and Chilli sang about almost two decades prior, when these delinquents were sperm and egg of their teenage parents wet dream and alcohol drugged fulled fumble faking adulthood stinking of immaturity and absent boundaries. The careless, reckless teenagers congregate cheering on the concrete jungle’s improvised theatre production, playing kiss chase, sharing cigarettes, screeching distorted music from their speaker-straining smartphone.

These are the only things that interrupt my cocoon, reminding me I’m still alive.

Even in my cage, my self-made, remote island I can’t hide. I can’t merely exist, float weightlessly, in the cast iron capsule, I’ve filed my 6ft 2in frame into. There is no space that grounds me; my attention is demanded, entertain I must, provide advice I must, be alive for you I must, promise you I shall not be selfish with my life I must, dare not strip away mounting responsibilities with rational/irrational thought, how dare I be selfish?

I barely have the capacity to be alive for myself.