The papers are strewn across my floor. Unfinished songs and stories, stopped just short of their inception. A graveyard of half formed idea’s surrounds me; tripping up my every step, rustling like dried, dead pond reeds in winter. There are plates and cups, clothes, shoes, mismatched detritus from my life mixed amongst the papers and books. The midday sunlight struggles to get through the closed curtains, the murmuring of traffic from this empty city the only sounds greeting my ears these days.
I used to be something. I used to have something. A family, a home, friends and loved ones. A career, of sorts. Now all there is is the consistent heartbeat thromb of traffic, the whistling of the wind pirouetting alongside the quiet creaks and groans from this old house. I used to have dreams too. I don’t dream that much nowadays. Confusing dreamscapes, tainted by the narcotic kiss of my waking habits.
My phone buzzes between episodes of consciousness. I can’t bring myself to look through most of them. Faces and names come and go, messages and pictures and posts and updates sail by my glazed eyes.
Lethargic.
It’s a good word right? I first properly learned its definition at university, though I don’t think I really understood it until recently. Or now. I’ve used it dozens and dozens of times over too, on reports or essays or texts or conversations. I’ve been shut off for I don’t know how many days, everything around me crumbling by my volition. My hair hangs limp and straw-like, deep roots showing through against the old vibrant colour. I haven’t washed for days, or weeks, something I detest under usual day to day operations.
I fully understand that as you grow up, you lose that childhood naivete. You gain more experiences and knowledge, and this subtext changes the way you begin to view the world around you, and the world within.
A lot has changed. I’m definitely not the same person I was when I first moved away from home. I can’t quite pin what happened exactly. A compilation of events and happenstance, coupled with the undesired consequences of substance abuse.
Though, I can’t ever truly blame it on the above. There must be an element that’s intrinsically related to me. To my makeup as a person, to my mannerisms and behaviours and thoughts and actions. I always had some fire to me, at least people have attributed these characteristics to me in the past, but it’s dull and weakened now, it's missing some important element I once possessed.
I want to tap into that fire again. I want to find that spark I had, that bright, distant sparkle in the eyes that everyone I’ve ever had the audacity to imitate seems to possess. I want to dazzle and amaze, I want to just go go go.
But back to the lethargy. The fire has gone, or its been replaced, or snuffed out. I no longer wish. I no longer dream. I no longer love. There is a vague wanting rattling around in my head sure, but it’s marred and tainted. Like trying to see the rocks at the bottom of a murky river. It’s there, but I don’t know how to access it right now. There’s too much dirt to see through, and my aim is off due to the refraction of the light.
There’s a level of contentment in my current state though, in my lethargy. I am content in my defeat. Everything is dulled and slowed down to a ridiculous crawl, and I’ve gained some sort of clarity in the silence. Sometimes there are benefits in being forced to slow down and view oneself through a different lens. Some breathing room lets say, or something like a pitstop in a race. I know I’ll have to get out again. I know I can’t stay here forever. The world is waiting. My life is waiting, my responsibilities are waiting, as much as I wish they weren’t right now.
It takes time, I guess. I should clean up the mess. I’ve cleaned up the mess before, and I’ll do it again. I’ve cleaned the plates and cups, I’ve collected up the rubbish in black bags and thrown it out. I’ve polished, scrubbed, cleaned and aired out before, and I can do it again.
I’ll pick up the loose papers, and open up my books. I’ll write additions and edits, I’ll cross out the old passages and birth new ones into existence. I can pour my heart and soul into my words, stay up till god-forsaken hours in the morning and continue till I drop from exhaustion. I’ll wake in the morning with papers stuck to my face, a faint dribble of saliva from my mouth pooled on the surface of the table. I can brush out my hair, shower and eat, and repeat it all over again.
And in those rare, quiet moments, I can once again feel peace, if only for a brief, fleeting moment. There’s no distractions or worries, and I can let myself be spirited away into another world once again. And if no one wants to listen to my words, then that’ll be okay. Maybe they’ll want to listen to my music instead, to the intricate patterns and sounds I can make with my instruments. And even if that’s a no go, I can pick myself up and try again.
Of course I’ll be defeated again. I think it's an inevitable loop we’re all stuck in. At some point or another, all of our works and achievements and victories will crack and burn, sometimes in spectacular fashion and sometimes with slow decay, and we’ll end up locked inside a dark room once again, squinting and cringing at the pale sunlight breaking through the curtains. And we’ll hide. We’ll retreat and we’ll break. And one day, I may bow out of the dance altogether.
That prospect used to scare me. It’s almost comical, thinking about how reckless I’ve been with my health and my body, all while being consumed with this unending fear of the inevitable. I don’t think I’m ready for the break of night just yet.
Today, I’ll get up. And I’ll fail again and again and again, and we’ll continue in our damnable dance. I’m not brave enough to end this dance today. I’ve still got more victories and defeats to try my hand at. There’s something noble, or admirable in doing so, I’d like to believe.
I’ll read my favourite works of literature. I’ll listen to and practice my favourite musical pieces, and in the quiet moments in between I can create, destroy and recreate again. Even if the entirety of my audience is me, myself and I, I can find something more to my contentment than this dull lethargy. I’ll find laughter and heartbreak rolled into one burning entirety.
I don’t think anyone truly understands the secret. I don’t think we’re meant to. At the very least, I don’t believe that it was my intended purpose to figure it out.
I’ve been content in my isolation and habits for a while now, but I need a change of scenery. Not an escape, as I know I can’t outrun this, more a reshuffle of my surroundings.
My vices may once again defeat me. I’ve been defeated in the past, and most likely I’ll be defeated again. But we’re beginning this new stanza without any influence, trying and re-trying to gain that perfectly flawed clarity. I know better than to be an optimist, we’ve been dancing this dance and playing this game for years now. A girl can dream though right? And that’s enough of an impetus to fall into the trap of trying again.
I’m turning to a new page. A blank page.
It’s up to me to figure out what to fill it with, if anything at all.
It was always my choice.
A lot of my favourite artists have written hundreds upon hundreds of words detailing and describing this damn fight. The good fight, the bad fight, any type of fight we go through. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of pretty words, intricate patterns signifying delicate meanings against stark white paper, dedicated solely to making some comment or another about life in all its absurd tendencies.
It’s nice to have the ability and wherewithal to describe everything. To be able to banish the un-rationality of thought and emotion and love and rage and hate and guilt into the realms of the knowable and explainable.
It may very well be for nothing. Your works and achievements may breathe their last alongside your own dying gasps, and lie silent from that day forward until the ends of time.
But that doesn’t mean we should exit the dance early, does it?
If nothing comes from my labour, then so be it.
I’ll get up again, and I’ll fail again.
I’ll ride death straight to hell with a smile plastered across my face.
That perfect laughter is the only good fight left.