Gasping

We gasp like fish at the surface of the water. We gasp into the open air. We gasp, and we don’t know what we’re gasping for. We look up, and we don’t know what we’re looking at. We see the sky, and we don’t know what it is. Are we alive? Are we dead? We don’t even know that. We don’t know anything.

Lost from everything. From ourselves. We don’t know how to take a single step forwards.  We don’t know how to live – just live. To continue breathing. We don’t know how to take a breath. We’ve forgotten how to breathe. How to walk. How to put one foot in front of the other.

We’ve forgotten the simplest of things. My God, we don’t know the simplest things. We’re so estranged from life. Life – we don’t know what that means. To live, just to live – impossible for us. Forbidden – for us.

And so we wander in the world’s night. Without knowing where to go. What to do.

Loss, endless loss. Day after day of loss.

But at least we have each other. At least we have companions in negativity. In utter world-disgust. In world horror.

 

The corruption is cosmic. The degradation is world-encompassing. We scream, inside. We cry behind our eyes.

We know what we do not want – at least we know that. We know what we hate – at least, at least.

And we’re not alone, with our hatred. There are others, with our hatred. We are with others, with our hatred. We don’t have to bear it alone.

Which means the world isn’t so bad. That things aren’t quite unbearable. That there’s a way through, after all. That there’s a path.

And the sky’s so beautiful. The sky, unparalleled tonight, in its beauty. The sky is the sky, and so far above us. The sky’s at least the sky. We can depend on the sky, at least. Things aren’t quite so desperate. The sky remains the sky. He clouds remain the clouds.

 

This isn’t our world. We didn’t ask to be born into this world – into any world. We didn’t ask to be lost here. We didn’t ask to be marooned.

 

We’re in denial. We’re in massive denial. How could it be otherwise? We cannot face what we have to face. We cannot endure what we have to endure. The sky, above us. The clue to transcendence. To release. The clue to be freed from this world. For heading out of this world.

We don’t want to be here. Even to live is too much for us. Even to go on. Even to take a single step – too much.

 

These are disgusting days. These are revolting days. These are lost days. My God …

We’d tear the world up if we could. We’d take revenge. For every botched day. For every disastrous day. For the disaster of our lives.

 

Our prayer: Don’t let us be this lost. Don’t let us destroy ourselves – not yet. Give us time. A little more time. Draw out our self-destruction. Fuck it, we’re not ready to die – not yet.

There are more variations on despair – on our despair.

 

We’d scream if we could. We’d scream and never stop screaming. We’d wake up the dead – all the dead. We’d bring them all back to life – the dead. The murdered dead. The slain dead. We’d give them a voice – a screaming voice. They could scream up to the fucking sky. And so could we. We’d scream, too. We’d raise our voices. In protest. In solidarity.

 

And we’re mad, too. We’re lost, too. We’re fucked too. In the head. In every other part of our lives.

We’re fuckers-up. We’ve fucked up our lives.

We’ve not long left. But who needs long left?

We’ll drink ourselves to death. We’ll throw ourselves into the sea. We’ll do something – something bad. We’ll do what the world wants. We’ll finish ourselves off, which is what the world wants.

Murder! Self-murder! Suicide! Of course! Auto-destruction! What else? What else could we imagine wanting?

 

We’re running out of air. We’re running out of time. We’re running out of road. We’ve outstayed our welcome – we know. We stayed too long.

The bar’s closing. The world’s closing. Time gentlemen please and all that. It’s closing time – of course it is. There’s nothing left for us – why should there be? There was never any place for us – for our kind.

 

Misfits – that’s what we were. The maladjusted. The maladroit. We didn’t know what to do, what to say. We know when to leave. When to take ourselves out. When to pop the bullet into the head.

We know we’re surplus to requirements. We know we’re not needed here . We know we bring nothing, add nothing. We know we’re awkwards. We’re misfirers.

 

Death a thousand times over. Death and then death. Death and then death again. That’s our lives. Our non-lives.

We’re dead, we’re dead. That’s our excuse – that’s always our excuse.

We’re dead and didn’t know. We died a long time ago – we’ve died a thousand times. That’s what we tell ourselves.

Death is our world! Death’s all we know! We’ve never lived, not really. Not for a moment.

We were born dead. We arrived dead. My God! What chance did we have? Born posthumous! No one should have expected anything! It’s a miracle we got as far as we did. But how far did we really get?