by Alexandria Brown-Panisse
Do you know what losing your mind feels like?
It’s forgetting the words to your favorite song
It’s losing your taste for the things you used to love
And you feel their absence like a gaping hole in your chest
Candles don’t smell as sweet, but the flames they support
Dance on your irises
Their infernal kiss beckoning your surrender
You have a complete disregard for your own life
Gilded dark alleys and soft speeding cars
You hear your name everywhere
But no one is calling you
The sunset you watched every evening
Has become muddled colors running into each other
You don’t cry
Or you cry too much
You no longer take comfort in the warmth of clothes straight out the drier
Or of hot showers on the rainiest of days
Pieces of you die with your beloved fictional characters
You confuse reality with the nightmares that plague you at night
And you become friends with the individual stars
Because the night has become a haven
Everything just feels so fucked up
And you can physically feel yourself being pulled apart
By the cold fingers of the unknown
So you put on a brave face
That sometimes looks like a grimace
And you hold it together long enough to get you through the day
Because what else can you do?