Shard of a Broken Mirror.
What makes a person a person?
It seems simple and obvious, isn't it? We see a human, moving, alive, or dead, but exist somewhere in time as an individual. A person. One that interacted with the world. One that feels and collects memories.
But what about a fraction of a person?
Are they a person still?
I'm but a small shard of a broken mirror.
A mirror nonetheless, yet not whole enough to be one.
Just a shard.
All pitiful with sharp, crumbling corners.
Do I exist?
Do I not?
I think, I read, I write, I feel, and is it all enough for me to be my own person when my own mind isn't entirely mine but a shared room with a small window that we took turns to look out from?
Cruel, Gracious, Time.
Isn't it cute when people talk about tomorrow as if they will see tonight?
Darling, we're not even guaranteed an hour let alone a day.
Isn't it cute when people laze around as if they have all the time in the world?
Darling, time never takes sides, let alone take yours.
Isn't it cute when people talk about the past as if brooding over it will change something?
Darling, the past won't change even if you go back, let alone only dream about it.
Cruel,
cruel,
time.
Gracious,
gracious,
time.
Time never truly existed.
Merely a concept widely believed.
Time was ever indifferent.
Unfeeling, undiscriminating.
Time can be cruel and time can be gracious.
Because they are both yet none.
One time solid.
One time gone.
Ghost of a Human Being
But have you ever seen the ghost of someone everywhere?
In the tiles they've walked on, the walls they've passed by, the flesh they lived in. And even in the corners of this world they have never touched.
They don't have to.
For they were already in your mind.
You look at the Moon and think of them.
Cause it was the same Moon that lit their path.
You look at the Sun and think of them.
Cause it was the same Sun that brightened their days.
You look at your phone and think of them.
Cause it was the screen that showed you their name.
The visible connection has been broken.
But the invisible thread stays.
They left.
But they never leave.
Not entirely.
Because they are still here.
Not them.
Merely the ghost of them.
The Thinker's Curse
Some knowledge were meant to be known, whilst most were meant to be secrets.
Woe to the seekers.
For they have to pay with all their hearts, soul, and sanity, and even more would never be enough.
Sometimes I wish I could know less.
To be blind to the truth and live in bliss,
unaware of the wretched things we live amongst.
But instead, I seek and continue to seek.
Until I felt sick towards all of this.
Of life.
Of society.
Of me.
I love the thrill of knowing.
Yet I yearn for the freedom of foolishness.
I know too much.
I think too much.
People say that ignorance is pain.
But perhaps, truth is that intelligence is pain.
My Beloved, My Enemy.
Run.
To the ends of Earth, darling.
To the lands of the dead.
To the heavens or anywhere beyond the hereafter.
But,
not you,
not me,
can ever escape ourselves.
We are but our own worst enemies.
Lurking in the dark.
Exist but not.
Unseen but felt.
Never spoke but heard.
Kind yet cruel.
Oh my lover and my killer.
My salvation and my demise.
My best supporter, friend, and hater.
You are talented, they say.
But you are not, the little voice says.
You are beautiful, they say.
But you are not, the little voice says.
Who to believe?
Those who never understand us, or the one who always stays with us?
Those who only saw our facade, or the one who saw our wretched face?
Tame them and win, darling.
It's always the little voice over the voices of others.
Morph them, darling.
Control them.
Befriend them.
Cause they are you and you can get them to believe in you more than yourself ever would.
Cause they are your biggest supporter and one who would always be there even if no one else could.
Your beloved,
or your enemy.
The right to decide has always been yours to make.
Loving an Idea
You say you love them but you don't know what makes them happy.
You say you love them but you don't know what makes them sad.
You say you love them but you made fun of their dreams and ideas.
You say you love them but you have no idea what kind of stories they would drown in. You have no idea where they would go to rest their tired minds. You have no idea what they do to cope with living.
Was it because you were ignorant?
Was it because you don't care?
Tell me,
Do you love them or do you love the version of them you had conjured in your mind?
Do you love them or do you love the idea of them?
Would you notice if it wasn't them, had someone else replaced them?
Or would you be fooled by their outer appearance?
Oblivious to their souls.
Just like any other person would.
Would you tell them this isn't them?
Oblivious how you forced them to be someone else.
Don't you think you know them when all you know are illusions.
Don't say you love them when all you do is shove them your delusions.
Don't say you love them when they have to kill a piece of themselves everyday just to be the person you want them to.
Do you love them?
Or do you love your own morbid imaginations?
The Choices
Had it stare at you right in the eyes,
tell me,
Would you be bold enough to choose a devastating reality where only pain thrived, over a glamour of everything you could ever want?
You may say you will.
You may say reality is always better than a meaningless illusion.
But darling,
when you feel it,
when you see it,
when your skin would rather rip away from you than follow you to the land of living,
would you still dare to choose reality?
Living is hard.
Dying is easy.
Accepting the truth is hard.
Drowning in the lies is easy.
Knowing is hard.
Blindfolded in ignorance is easy.
Remember my words once you reach the crossroad.
Choose the path you want the most.
It may feel painful,
but there are no rainbows without rain.
Choose.
Hard choices come with sweet returns.
Easy choices come with sweet beginnings.
Choose.
For there was never right or wrong.
There were only ever choices.
The Deathly Pairs
Hope and despair come in pairs.
Yearn for one and you'll be burdened with the other.
And yet people still hope.
Devoutly.
Stupidly.
Love and heartbreak come in pairs.
Yearn for one and you'll be burdened with the other.
And yet people still love.
Obsessively.
Religiously.
Drugs and corruption come in pairs.
Yearn for one and you'll be burdened with the other.
And yet people still get high.
Desperately.
Miserably.
Humans always needed an escape.
Something to drown in.
Someway to cope.
Sometimes,
we got lucky and cheated out of the consequences.
We hope without feeling despair.
We love without feeling heartbreak.
We cope without destroying ourselves.
But how many of us got lucky?
Perhaps a meagre amount.
Perhaps none.
Losing Self
What have I done?
Who have I become?
For years I have altered myself to please, creating more and more mes that aren't me.
Have I played pretend for too long?
Have I felt too comfortable behind the screen of fiction?
For years I have grown comfortable in the midst of the abundant mes.
Their different personalities and histories.
May myself forgive me for my cowardice.
May myself forgive me for our deaths.
For years I have thought I could retain my sense of self.
Who knows that I've grown too attached to the fakes I couldn't tell apart me and the countless mes.
Until I disappear.
Until I became we.
Who am I now if not an amalgamation of facades?
What is reality if not an amalgamation of fakes?
Alone and Free.
Do not pay me any mind.
Do not be kind to me.
Do not ask about me.
Do not talk to me.
Just leave me alone, why don't you?
Alone and free.
With my thoughts,
and my feelings.
The thoughts you never wanted to know.
The feelings you never wanted to protect.
For years I have bitten my tongue till it bleed,
keeping myself silent for it was what it takes to be a decent human being.
I do not need your attention.
For years, I had gladly bash in it, then had no choice but to accept it.
Because it always comes with a price.
And I'd rather starve, be lonely, and sad.
Please.
Just Leave.
Do not force me to pay for something I never bought.
Please.
Just leave.
Do not act like you've done something great.
When all you do is rob,
and rob,
and rob.
Leave me be, within the walls of my mind.
Where I can feel like I'm finally home.
Where I can be
alone and free.
Happiness Hurts
They say happiness feels like the warmth of daylight seeping in through your skin. Embracing your bones, and turning your heart into a mushy puddle of delight.
They say happiness is yellow.
Bubbly and bright.
They say happiness smells like cookies and cupcakes, and a plethora of flowers blooming between the butterflies in your stomach.
They say happiness is the laughter and smiles you share with your loved ones.
Lingering. Heartwarming.
If so…
Then I never knew this thing called happiness at all.
To me, happiness felt like a dream trapped in a distant screen.
Like the reflection of the moon upon the still water surface.
Visible.
Impossible to touch.
Like scraping a rock with your nails desperate to feel.
Close.
Impossible to accomplish.
You will only be left with blood and mangled fingers.
You will only be left with an aching heart and a hollow chest.
How wretched.
It was merely another thing outside my grasp.
Exist to tempt.
Impossible to get.
Stagnant Water.
I have lived all these years, over and over again, thinking what could've been if only I did something different.
I have repeated the same words, same actions.
I have done thousands of different things.
Things that I know would never be.
I have spoken a thousand of different scripts of the same scenes.
Scenes I knew could never be.
For excepting the one that happened long ago, it all existed only in my head.
I haven't lived for long.
But I have lived for much longer than my age count said I did.
People moved on.
The world moved on.
Yet here I am, still repeating the same things, still seeing the same scenes, still hearing the same words.
My life is but stagnant water.
Mind collapses as my thoughts scatter.
I wonder how many times the leaves have grown and wilted.
I wonder how many times the snow has fallen and perished.
For nothing ever changes to me.
Does it even matter how nice the air felt as the sunlight peeked through the branches?
Does it even matter how the animals have woken up from their slumber?
The world may change,
but I do not.
People moved on.
The world moved on.
Yet here I am, still repeating the same things, still seeing the same scenes, still hearing the same words.
I am tired of the same old scenes.
It smelled sickly sweet.
And it is my reality.
For I am destined to rot here, just like stagnant water.
Title: Nothing is eternal
Sometimes I stayed awake and thought of death.
Of heaven and hell.
Of what lays beyond it all.
They say sinners would eternally suffer in hell.
They say saints would be eternally happy in heaven.
But what is suffering and happiness in the face of such a thing as eternal?
For the first time, sure,
the impact would be greater than you can ever expect.
Heaven and hell.
For the first hundred years,
or the first thousand years and the next.
Feelings may stay.
But how long would it last?
As time continued on its neverending path,
until it seemed that we have gone beyond the time itself,
whatever is it would be left?
Emptiness?
Numbness?
Madness?
Or all it all combined?
Humans are happy because they can have some things, and cannot have some things.
They can experience something for a mere silver of time.
They bathed in it all, because everything is temporary.
Humans are sad, because they can have some things, and cannot have some things.
They can experience something for a mere silver of time.
They drowned in it all, because everything is temporary.
But when everything lasts for eternity, could we even value them the same?
But when you can have everything,
but when you can only have nothing,
would anything hold meaning at all?
Humans live for tens to a hundred years.
They say forever while in fact, picturing a few measly years.
They think too little of forever.
They couldn't comprehend the thing they would never even come close to.
Because nothing is eternal,
but nothing.
Our Unheard Screams
Do you know that plants can be in pain too?
Do you know that they scream and send out distress signals?
Do you know that they too, like us, can feel?
It was true.
But I wasn't talking only about plants.
I was also talking about you,
and me.
About us who have learnt to cry in silence.
About us who have learnt how to bite our tongue for the sake of maintaining peace.
About us who have learnt to dig our nails to our palms than to claw at other's faces.
About us who have learnt to hold the anger within us and silently burn ourselves from within than to sear at another's skin.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of screaming for help but get nothing but a sore throat.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of explaining yourself but still, get nothing but blame.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of bending over backwards to please, yet still expected to do more.
I am.
I am, in fact, tired.
Let's plan our way out shall we?
Maybe we can build a little cottage somewhere in the forest.
Maybe we can live in peace, surrounded with the things we love.
Or maybe,
Let's stop and look around.
Try to listen to those cries.
To the cries that came from others who are just like us.
Let's try listening,
maybe one day someone will listen to us too.
Murderer.
People can be killed in two ways.
Physically.
And mentally.
But isn't it funny how people only become a murderer if there was a dead body?
Why can't they be a murderer too if they kill someone mentally?
Unfair.
It's so unfair.
Why don't you just slit their throat and be done with it, you coward.
Instead of slitting their hearts everyday.
Did it satisfy you to murder the same person everyday and see their corpse walk on Earth?
Did you think you were better than those murderers locked behind bars?
No, you are worse.
Because they killed a person once.
You killed a person multiple times.
So cunning.
So so cunning.
No evidence.
Not even a dead body.
You come out clean of blood.
Clean of a guilty conscience