Do you really believe you are strong?

You systematically push away all the reasons you have to stay. You let your fingers brush off the dust as you sit up after another night spend on the floor, the bottles surrounding your suddenly pale frame. How long has it been since your skin tasted sunlight? How long since your eyes roamed a world that was not blighted by the hate you feel, the evil you have let in? Your memories are hazy, but any imbecile could correctly deduce what happened, and yours is a brilliant mind. You passed out again, the drinks sweeping you off to a distant place where you are who you always dreamed you would be, instead of the feeble excuse for a man you are now. You sigh as you stand up, your head swimming in something that reminds you an awful lot of the water you used to glide through, except that this is a sickly feeling, and that was something far more beautiful. The bathroom smells of her perfume, and perhaps a touch of guilt echoes around inside that heart of yours. You know the one I’m talking about; the one you so often deny you have. That heart that still feels a touch of morality, though you deny such obligations’ existence. You shake your head, take a few pills, and then try to figure out what exactly you are going to do today. Your fingers lightly pad your computer, and the name of your mother flashes up on your mail. You look at it for a long while, your eyes staring at her name until you can see nothing but the look on your little brother’s face when you showed the side of you that you had once kept hidden from him. “He’s old enough,” you reasoned. “He must know what the real world is like. He can’t stay a child forever.” But still, your heart beats too quickly and your mind will not stop telling you how many times you have messed up in just the last twenty four hours, never mind the last few months. You wished you were as strong at the image your little sister used to have of you was. “She doesn’t have it any longer. The way she looked at me…” You almost feel ashamed, until you remember that shame is for the weak, and that is one thing you have never been.

Is that true? Something whispers inside of you. You brush it off, much like the dust from earlier. Still, it comes back. Do you really believe you are strong? If you were so strong you would not be so easily contained by this cage you have locked yourself in. You agree, but you hate it, so you yell instead. Really, what is one more beer going to hurt?

All the while, your fingers throb with words you used to say and now never even think, and your eyes wish for sunlight while your skin screams for cleanliness.

A try at some poetic prose. What did you think this time?