LIVE

Existing is still an effort, a daily battle. I am not “living” – I don’t know how to. I was busy doing other shit and creating toxic neural pathways when everyone else learned, and now I am at loss.

The struggle to score daily has mutated into another fight: the inner battle, wrestling with and against myself, never for, every day, every hour, every minute I spend awake. And asleep, too, since addiction tends to viciously permeate one’s subconscious.

It’s just that, before, my life had a purpose: wake up, use, work and make money so I can use some more, use, score, use, forget to eat, forget to sleep. Repeat ad libitum. It was a simpler life. Maybe not a happier one (not that this current one is), but definitely simpler. Don’t get me wrong, it had its downsides too. Waiting’s a big one. Withdrawals are another. But how much easier was it to just not care, to not be worth more than that.

I wish I could just “live”. Unfortunately, I’ve trained my brain to never be satisfied, to be in a perpetual state of wanting more, of expecting more. Because it and I know what could be. So how could we ever be satiated with less? How is everything ever going to stop feeling like a mere distraction from the next big thing, the next big high, the next overwhelming wave of calm and numbness that completely takes over and puts you in the much needed backseat in your own life? When will that happen? Let’s be practical here, let’s be realistic. I need a timeframe. No “just-for-today” bullshit, please.

As I sit typing this, huffing countless Whip-Its in the process, depraving my body of oxygen to allow myself a few milliseconds of respite, I realise that it summarises my existence neatly. Whatever shit I pump in my body, I will try to evacuate it in words and art. It’s almost like I want to punish my brain for thinking too much, for feeling too much. Fuck you, brain. Take this. And this. Oh, you think you can handle that? Take double. Triple. I’ll obliterate you before you can remember my own name.

So here’s to new beginnings. May they look exactly like every other promising starts, filled with the same excitement and rose-tainted expectations, before they eventually run their course and crash and burn like every single ones before. And if or when it all fails, as it tends to, then I can take solace in the fact that I did try, repeatedly, before I reverted back to what I know best. My last braincells wholeheartedly concur.