Is this what heaven feels like?

Lying in your arms on a Sunday morning

Your body warm and at ease as it cradles mine

Your stubble a pleasant sting

You're catching some more sleep, I'm reading poetry

The window is cracked

Outside there are the people setting up the market

Some lost seagulls squawking over the lazy river

The best sound to me is your warm breath and soft snoring into the back of my neck,

as my fingers rustle through the pages

The scent of the night before hangs in the air

Heavy and hot and damp

Red wine and old roses

Sweat and cigarettes

The lingerie is still on the floor

Your arms pull me closer

Languid, luscious lips place onto the back of my neck

I sigh

This must be what heaven feels like

I am stuck.

There’s no other way of putting it.

For as long as I can remember I always felt like I didn’t belong. I always felt out of place. I’ve always been the weird kid. And I never fit in.

It’s the bane of my existence and the most awful condition of my mind.

Something’s just wrong.

The worst thing is that I truly believe that there’s no solution for my issue. Thus I am stuck in this limbo of trying to live my life, but always questioning why I even try. Because I am stuck and there’s no way out of it.

It sounds depressing (and trust me sometimes it is), but most of the time I’m quite okay. I live my life, find joy in small moments and just keep on going.

Am I depressed? Perhaps.

Have I thought about killing myself? More times than I care to admit.

It’s always there in the back of my mind. It’s there as a way out. So why haven’t I killed myself? The reason is twofold. One: I am even more afraid of death than I am to keep on living. It’s my fear of oblivion that’s to blame here. The idea that after this there’s nothing but nothingness, is soothing and terrifying at the same time. Until I don’t see death as frightening anymore, I will not enter that realm voluntarily. When I go I don’t want to be scared. I want to be at peace, at ease. Two: killing myself wouldn’t solve any of my issues and it would only create more problems for the people I leave behind.

My life has become a dull routine and surprisingly enough I’m okay with that. Here’s how a day goes. Wake up. Keep turning around until I eventually find the courage to get out of bed, or most days until I eventually have to get out of bed. Head to the café. Work my shift. Take smoke breaks when the pace of the day allows it. Talk to some regulars. Inevitably burn myself on the espresso machine. Clock out and head home. Shower. Then I either head to bed, read, write utter non sense, watch a movie, smoke a joint… Wait until my mind slows down enough for the day so exhaustion can finally take hold and my body can slip into sleep. When I do not stay in I go out. To a friends place where we do much the same as I would do on an evening alone, just with company. Or I head out to a bar, see the people I know. Talk, discuss, listen to other people’s issues. Drink. Drink some more. Stumble home and regret your decisions. Wake up again.

It’s an endless loop with little variation. When I try to diverge from it, it works for a while. Then after a couple of weeks or months I am exhausted and I fall back into the fold.

In my twenty-two years I have been trying to figure out who I am. Inevitably the following question comes up: what is it that is wrong? When I try to figure out who I am it always comes down to the following, that is that I have a pretty good grasp on who I am or want to be and what I want, but that I am unable to achieve what I want and to be who I am at my core.

And so the days go by. I feel my true youth slipping away. It has been slipping for a while. I was incredibly naive and that naiveté should have been something that slowly should’ve disappeared. I should have been weened off of it. Instead it was taken from me far too soon. I’ve been trying to cope with it’s loss for years and I desperately grasp on to the last remaining straws, for even though I am unhappy, I will be more unhappy without it.

I think I finally need to get down to the root of the issue. I’ve been avoiding writing it down, or saying it out loud. Mainly because I’m afraid. I’m afraid that once it’s spoken it will become a true thing and not just a figment of my imagination. I am afraid that people will think I’m crazy, or pretentious. I’m afraid that allowing myself to say those words the reality of it all will hit me and I’ll be one step closer to the edge of oblivion. So here goes nothing:

I believe I was born in the wrong time. This causes two issues. One: I will never be albe to live my life the way I want to, because the potential for the life I want to live is not there. My times have past and so I drift around on auto-pilot, unable to ever truly feel at ease. I believe that the time you live in should feel like home. I am unable to go home. Home was long gone by the time I was born. Two: I have an unwillingness to live in these times. I do not want to live in an age of social media, rapid technological advancements, impending political chaos, the inevitable collapse of the world that’s coming wether it will come because of war, economical collapse or climate change. I realize that I do in fact live in these times. My unwillingness to live in these times does not come from my refusing to accept and deal with these issues. I am fully aware and deadly afraid of these things. I speak out when I can and do what I can do. But I know the answer to these problems will not be me or whatever I do. It’s the governments and the major corporations that caused these issues and they will do anything to keep the status quo.

These times leave me with a feeling of helplessness. I know that all my personal actions will be null and void and that disaster is pending. We’re all just here doing our time until everything eventually goes to shit. I just wish I could’ve been doing my time somewhere, sometime else.

The rover, that is how I will remember him. The world savvy, tough guy with the dark locks and those pale, innocent eyes.

I was drawn to him the moment I first met his gaze. Many late nights we spent together, drawing in closer, closing the gap.

I remember the first touch of his metal lips. Soft and hesitant as he attempted to kiss away the tears in my eyes.

His laughter and tales of far off places echo in the caverns of my mind.

That night on the rented bed was the last time he let me in. He had opened up too much for his liking. In those early morning hours I read him like the open book he'd become to me.

The rough, ragged man was no more; in his place the wounded boy appeared. The boy that painted the sky purple.

He was not roaming freely. He was running away. Unable to deal with the guilt he has heavily carried for ten years.

A silent tear ran across his cheek as I described the colour of his eyes to him.

A heart of green surrounded by waves of the clearest blue. Eyes mirroring the land he called home.

Perhaps it reminded him too much of the sorrows he spends most of his waking hours drowning away. Or I frightened him because I saw him clearer than he would allow himself to see.

It matters not, for he did the only thing he knows... He ran.