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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

I live under a sky without stars.

The night feels unhinged, dislocated. The air is too warm for comfort. Mosquitoes abound, but I’m not afraid of being bitten or getting sick because they would sooner die from my caffeinated blood and nicotine lungs.

I try to make sense of the past few days, not realizing that it is already Thursday. I’ve been living inside a story for almost two weeks, hibernating again within the cave of my own imaginings. A good friend asks me where I’ve been, why she hasn’t heard from me. I could only offer the flimsiest of excuses knowing that the truth would make no sense.

G fishes me out from time to time, but he is more courageous than he knows: he sits with me inside the cave, and tries to grasp the illusion that has consumed the hours. He sends me recordings for inspiration, for good luck. He sends them to remind me that I’m not alone in my madness. 

The story is coming along but I’ve hit a snag, and it is absolutely frustrating. Perhaps I’m merely delaying the inevitable. Still though, I can’t wait to wake up when it’s done. 

writing personal journal prose theorchestraofmadness

Unwinding means remembering to eat breakfast at 4 p.m. 

I had forgotten myself again.

For two weeks, all the world was merely a stream of butchered consciousness, to borrow a phrase from a beloved friend. Waking, working, sleeping. Lather, rinse, repeat. The real world is a merciless enemy. And I could not fight against it at the time.

But now I think I’m realigned. Finding balance is such a tedious feat. I operate off-kilter most of the time. 

On and off, on and off, I flicker like a dying light bulb. Or like Sylvia’s fever. 

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My heart is a rusty little thing.
I am even more plugged in these days, wired to my seat, hands bolted on the mouse and the keys. Eight hours, twelve hours, sixteen hours… I log in like clockwork despite the lack of sleep, lack of peace, the haunting...

My heart is a rusty little thing. 

I am even more plugged in these days, wired to my seat, hands bolted on the mouse and the keys. Eight hours, twelve hours, sixteen hours… I log in like clockwork despite the lack of sleep, lack of peace, the haunting tick-tock of the clock that shrieks deadlines, deadlines, DEAD-LINES. Even in conversations, I answer in auto-reply, in practiced spiels. 

They have turned me into a machine.

My mind gets exhausted. My bones creak. My fingers cramp. My eyes burn and bleed. But they still think I am a machine.

Well now, darling dictator, I’m slowly running out of energy. I am doing this out of need, out of love. Love powers my engine, but even cars run out of gas. What do you think I am?

Oh right–you think I am a machine.

One day, I will rise above you, into the stars that look upon me not as a machine but as a human being. I will rise above you and your stupid, tiny world that panders to your every whim. One day, I’ll sail into space, into the vast dreamscape that your closed little soul will never dare explore. By then I would not need to smile at you with my mercurial teeth, my steel grin. I will have no need for you and I can forget about you, fully, finally.

Darling dictator of doom, when that time comes, I will no longer be your machine, your little puppet whose strings you could pull at your beck and call. I promise you this.

I am not a machine.

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