Memory.

Freckles of light are dancing through the sun-dappled leaves; the sun is pushing itself through the webs of the trees web of branches that mar the perfect blue sky. I can finally feel my high reaching my blood stream and I’m weightless once more, my thoughts floating in the wind with the leaves. I can hear the giggles of those lying on the soft ground around me as if in another realm, echoing so lightly it’s as though they are shadows of words already spoken. I feel as though I am suspended in time, the high of the drugs, the alcohol and the cigarettes mingling with my mind to take me higher. We are together. But our minds are in the ether, hanging separately in a world not our own, but of our own imaginations.

Laughter permeates the air as each breath brings about new joy, and new memories. A moment of pure perfection, one of innocent charm and wonder. But one with a limited amount of time on the clock, the seconds are already ticking by, quickly now, and faster still. The sun will be rising soon and the high will begin to fade, the drugs have run out, and the alcohol has run dry, the cigarettes have been smoked and soon we must return to our reality. Their voices are coming back to me now, louder and louder until I’m no longer in the limbo I crave, and my suspension in the sky is no longer possible.

I long for the day when I can float in oblivion without having to be dragged down to earth again. But my memories fight their way free and rampage into the darkest corners of my mind, raking their fingers over old wounds. The monsters are lying in wait to take a hold of me again; they want to pull me into the hole where the nightmares live. And the high that is permeating my brain can only push them away for so long. I find myself longing for a new release upon my arrival back into the world of truth. The drugs have left my system now and I am left empty once more. I need more. Something better. Something stronger.

--

Anger, grief, guilt, fear, sorrow, wrath; they whirl within me, fighting for dominance and desperately clawing toward the surface. But none shall escape; they remain bubbling at the surface, waiting to explode or be filtered out by yet another high. Reality has set in, and once more I am holding myself down, forcing restraints across the wrists of the swirling thoughts in my head.

Instead splashes of blood splatter the skin of my thighs, my ribs, my arms and my hands. Red scars my vision as the pain holds me upright, pushing through heaviness that rests on my chest. The second the blade rains down is my release, it holds peace in its grasp as it holds me tight before letting me go all over again. The swift nick of savagery upon my skin acts as my blessing from the whirlwind that acts as my thoughts. Only numbness and hurried swipes of the razor hold my sanity now.

--

When my eyes shut upon the world I can still see the dancing light above me, creeping through the low shade of the leafy canopy overhead. Smoke trails twisting in the air, unravelling from the cigarette between my fingers, lingering in the air like forgotten dreams. They twirl in the sky reaching ever higher, curling into the heavens I long to embrace. When my eyes are shut, and the blade is singing its release I can find my way back there, to the place where the high is the only thing rampaging across my mind. Escape still remains a dream shadowed in the back of my mind, beneath the twisting roars of the memories that still remain.

The poison spreads across my conscious, unrelenting, only staying at bay for the seconds I can claw back to me. I find myself longing for moments of wretched relief. I long for the enchantments that rule my mind to break, to free me, to let me remain in this moment of freedom. I long for the high to last forever, for the buzz of the alcohol to hold me above all else, but instead I find myself lost amongst the leaves in my dreams. Running through the forests that tower above me, they tower within the walls of my mind as they make the monsters small again. For seconds at a time I’m suspended, held up by the lashings I inflict upon myself. But it remains that I must linger in reality until my fantasies can fly me away from the nightmares that rule my thoughts.