-Prologue-

There's a fine line between dreams and delusions, and another even finer line, with the consistency of golden filigree threads interwoven with light, that separates delusions and hallucinations. That splits unreality from the here and now. Now, you see, it's impossible to tell who's about to fall off the other side, that's the scary part. You'll never see it coming. Trust me, I know. I didn't. He didn't. Life goes on, until one day, BAM. It hits, and then it's too late. Because some people walk that line with tightrope precision their whole lives, living on a delicate balance, their existence as a person as fragile as paperthin glass roses spun from pearly moonlight. But something's bound to go wrong - that's always the way, isn't it? - and so, the moment something changes, the moment a switch goes off and an entire area is flooded with darkness, the moment a switch goes on and the surrounding area is dimmed, darkened in comparison, a thread unravels. And with it, your emotions, your sanity, you. Life picks at you like the constant scraping of a single, pure, untainted four-letter word on the wall of a metaphysical prison cell people construct around the fist-sized organs we hide behind ribcages. When it finally gets through, everything collapses in on itself into a single point of light so concentrated and so intense that it fills your vision, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and push your hands over them in a desperate futile attempt to block it out, and it just keeps condensing and condensing until -

everything goes dark.

Oh blessed darkness, the comforting weight of it pressing down on your shoulders, like a warm blanket on a cold day, a mug of hot chocolate in your hands, like one of those tight hugs that intensify the fluttering in your heart, like hummingbirds' wings, like the relief on a steaming tub filled to the brim with scented water and lightly floating flower petals the pale nothing colour of the sky just after night ends and day starts, a tribute to that brief second where Sun and Moon, main characters of the world's greatest and most tragic love story, coexist in the same sky, at the same time. Like floating around, , on the obsidian surface of calm waters at night. You revel in it. Trust me, I know. I did. He did. We got lost, you see, lost in the deep black, and we didn't feel like doing a thing. Moving around felt sluggish, displacing the thickness of the dark was tiring, mentally, and so, physically too, because everything there is correlated.

You'll lose yourself in that kind of eternal night. Trust me, I know. I did. He did.

You'll never find your way out. Trust me, I know. I didn't. He didn't.

See, it's all an illusion, a nonentity, a phantasm, chimera, but when that tiny sliver, that tiny figment of your own mind becomes so complex and convincing, it might as well be real. Because when you believe in it, and you will, trust me, you can never un-believe. That's as impossible a feat as not thinking of a pink elephant. It's all in the mind, they say. For once, they were right. Just not in context.

We both got lost.

But now, I'm giving you a free pass. Welcome to the labyrinth of our minds, where so many things got lost in the twisted veins we hold inside, where so many things died inside the labyrinth that is our body, where so many things just disappeared, never to be recovered, because we're stuck in here now, stuck forever, stuck in this living hell. Figuratively, of course, though comparatively less figurative then say, unfinished holiday assignments, wouldn't you agree? Just remember, tie a string, golden filigree threads interwoven with light, around your ankle, around your anchor where you are before you enter, because you don't want to get lost. You don't want to lose yourself.

I think you will, though. And you should trust me when I say - you're like the both of us. We used to live. That's the deciding factor about whether you walk on that line or not, I decided in my time spent here, which is basically forever and forever. People live, but we lived. You live. I'm talking to you like you're one of us now, because you're part of me, part of him, part of everyone else like us. We're a psychedelic mush of emotions and heartbeats and body parts. We lay our skins out, unravel our veins into a line that stretches and stretches into eternity, like a train of thought that never completed itself, in the hope that someday someone will come along and put us back together. But hey, and this is a warning I pray you heed, you don't have long. The moment that someone comes along, everything unravels. And with it, your emotions, your sanity, you. 

Then again, you don't care about that do you? You're filled with burning desire, I can see it in your eyes. So similar to mine when I first set eyes on him. You'll enter this dark world, this vacuum of thought and presence except the crushing weight the darkness holds over you, crushing away the pain and the sorrow, the bittersweet memories and the soursalt lunacy, leaving nothing but nothing behind.

I'll see you soon, I suppose.

Have fun.

A poem by writingsforwinter (tumblr):

The first time he heard voices, he wouldn’t look at me, went into the bathroom

and ran the tub full of water, tucked himself beneath the cool skin

of its surface and tried to drown them out. The next day, he couldn’t

stop talking about joy being like an ice-covered tree, about strangers

with arms like blood oranges, dark moths covering a woman until

only her eyes were visible.

The brain is just a layer of tissue and nerves suspended in fluid;

the heart knows what the heart wants, and human beings are only

made of 75% water.

I tried to understand this, how that road sign upstairs in his brain

that was once lit up had gone out so quickly, like a pit stop

on an abandoned road once used by passing travelers

and then slowly left for good.

On Mondays he shook so hard every bone beneath his wrists rattled,

and wouldn’t leave the house because there were men in black suits

outside waiting to take him away.

Other nights I would wake up at 3 am to find him standing

at the window, hands pressed to the glass, staring out at the city lights,

telling me there was someone out there, looking back at him,

paranoid. He slurred his words like a man who’s had a few too many drinks,

but all I could do was hold him

until the next round of antipsychotics.

A song by Laura Marling (singer/songwriter):

{video}

{lyrics}

I honestly recommend watching video then the lyrics and then the video again, and the song is so nice it doesn't really matter either way but if you don't want to, at least play both at the same time and mute the lyrics so you know what she's singing about.

Goosebumps. Chills. Gosh I can't take it bye.