Like gasoline lit on fire, it burns through my veins, I cannot eat or sleep, little earthquakes [rumble] in my belly, an uncontrollable mania taking hold of me, I speak in tongues, and sing in multiple voices.

All this despite knowing.

The ice comes sudden, …a killing blast of frosty wind and all my words freeze and fall like dead stone.

Smile turned to rictus, every breath ragged. And yet I knew, only my ears still burn, the shame of believing in false hope.

Lastly, there is the hollowness, when the madness is at least flushed from my body, and I have poured out the last of my soul onto the paper, I’m running on empty now, without knowing when I can next fill up, and every moment is anxiety, any moment could be instant death.

There are no reasons to stay.

There are no reasons to go.

All choices I could possibly make are blocked doors and lonely silence, the echoes of my footsteps the only sound I can hear, it is not coldness, but a void, an absence of matter, the palpable knowledge that something is supposed to be there, though in fact it is empty.

I cease to hope. For there is only this moment, and this moment, and this moment, and nothing more.