Would somebody out there be as kind as to hand me a map? I’m stuck forever in an overdone horror movie. The circular world around me molds itself into a cubic prison. The clouds above me drip down and form prison bars, vapor to the eye, and metal to the touch. I can see in front of me, to the right, to the left, if I’m so inclined I turn and see the same bleak opaque features. Yet I’m as lost as the Titanic floating in its icy grave, and I am as doomed as the unsinkable boat. I have what I am feeling handed to me on a silver platter. My self, previously dead, resurrected through hope, tells me what it sees in the mirror. Yet who am I to believe, and who is looking through the mirror? Is it just a trick of the light, more smoke and mirrors, or just two mirrors casting the same reflection? Save me from this horrible onslaught of torturous issues and situations. When I come back from being gone for so long, why is everything out of sync? Am I the gear, the bolt that holds the entire social machine together? To think so is enormously egotistical and I am just a modest man. So this modest gentleman must sit down with his self, and talk with it. The more I talk, the more I learn, and the more I smile. Yet secretly, I dislike my abilities. I seem to have the knack to make others think, and now I’m drinking my own secret formula. I ignore the skull with bones crossed behind it, and I dowse my thirst for knowledge by snubbing the angel that exists on my shoulder. At night, the poison takes effect and I can feel the warmth spread in my bowls. Groaning and moaning I twist and I turn, I wrap myself in drenched covers and wiggle into a worm. Wrapped in the sweaty cloths I wish to burrow into the ground, find the warmest spot and just do nothing. Yet down there nothing would stop me from doing the only thing I fear, thinking. That thing which I have grown to secretly admire and detest seems to haunt me more than pleasure me these days. Hugging on to miniatures, I squeeze fake love out of every immobile object I can reach. I am a lonely Midas, and I have eager hands. Hugging on to these objects, I think. I think why I am hugging, and I push away. I push as far away as I can to only find out I am pulling behind me, trying my hardest to bluntly run away while looking still. What is it that I want? Is it what is said? Is it what is shown? There are too many parts to me. I wish everything would act and think as one, I wish I could be collective instead of dispersed. My heart, my soul, my mind, my instincts are spread across a spectrum that reaches into the skies of the world, and oppositely digs deep into the pit of Earth. My body is the playground, and my sanity is a prize. They fight over it, each one believing they are correct. Secretly they speak into my ear, whispers and coaxing me into believing. Some are stronger than the other at times, and they seem to dominate the court. At times I believe they are all bullies, and I am the little kid who gets beat up each day after school. Scared and frightened I return each day, either secretly I am a masochist or I have nowhere else to go. Thinking stronger now, I see I am drowning. Dear friend I am drowning. Suddenly I morph into a rock, my features of torment become set in this cruel stone. I can no longer kick my feat, they are formed together, I can no longer use my arms, and they are forced into my sides. I am a dead weight in more than one way. Faster than my mind can register I’m sinking further down. I can catch glimpses of others sinking beside me, but I seem to be sinking much faster. Soon the light blue gives to the deep blue, and the deep blue surrenders to the frozen black. Pitch darkness, something I have grown used to, and something I have almost grown to seek comfort in. As a child I used to have a light in my room, it was a symbol of hope, a bearer of my courage, sending away all demons with its sword of light. As a child I was deathly afraid of darkness, always associating it with decapitated bodies and inhumane screams. Yet at one point of my life the darkness grew on me. I seemed to be living in a constant state of darkness in one-way or another. If it was light of day, my mind was pitch black, if it was midnight black, then I was at least invisible. Just as the darkness grows on me, I grow on others. Yet I don’t see this as a good thing. Cancer grows on objects. Death slowly grows up into a person. What am I getting at here, I ask myself. More rambling from the insane man in the corner of the padded room I say. More distorted perceptions from the broken glasses, more slurred words from the man drunk from society. No, I don’t know where I am going with this; just like my life I don’t know where I am going. Guilty as charged judge, I am accused with saying I don’t know too much. Well honestly, I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know much anymore, my smarts were drained away from a hole caused by a misfire from a disgruntled social life. All I know is what all-different sides of me want, and I want them all too. Conflict of interest is such a cliché to me that I am sickened by the very thought of what everybody wants. I wish somehow that my sanity could speak up once in a while, stand up, amidst being battered and torn, and declare that it would want nothing more than a coke, a comfy chair, and a view of the ocean. Yet it knows as well as I do it would be laughed at and mocked to no end. So, it curls up in a little ball and hopes it magically absorbs the pain thrown at it.