Foreground

I grow mute. I listen and hold tongue; even speaking I am truthfully silent. No one notices. Rarely anymore do I say words of content and when I do those are unnoticed. I wonder if I'm mad. Perhaps they are right and my perception is off, I've become lost.

I want to laugh or cry or stand up and leave; I can do none of these things. Instead I sit and watch blank faced - sometimes I smile and nod as though knowingly - listening with occasional interjections of nonsense that they seem to understand. I day dream of rope and dangling feet, piss and shit puddle beneath me as I swing.

I used to understand clearly, too much. Now it all grows grey and tired, thoughts and ideas expressed through smoke stained lined. Distant and old; me or possibly them, I do not know. I whisper no longer for return tickets and stop buttons. Lies to anaesthetise. Now I accept inevitable terrors as truth.

I am here, alone, in prisons of flesh and bone and blood and meat. I'd scream but I fear what I might say.