lazarus
in truth, i have nothing to say at all. i just want the words to keep spilling. my head has long been filled with flies and maggots, indicators of death and decay. but other times, they house snakes and vultures, violent thoughts feeding a violent mind. how long has it been since i was free? i don’t remember the sky at all. the orange trees and the floating leaves. this poison is making me more sick in the head, i told him once. it’ll make you sleep at night, he replied.
some days it’s just numbers, other times it’s my own self. i don’t recognize whether i’m leaving home or coming back. i take back three steps and try to make out the walls. i follow the lines, straight, then broken, leading to my forearms. i don’t know where i’m standing at all. i try to resist — i’ve gone more days awake than this — until it manifests an outline of a stranger who has my face. what is this? what am i made of? are you sure it’s flesh and blood and bones? has anyone checked? are you lying? tell me the truth.
fight it,
fight it,
fight it,
fight it,
fight it,
don’t feed it, don’t tend to it, don’t encourage it, don’t raise it.
it must have been the moving shadows or the scarred sight or the eternally falling light. i must ask, which of these are real?
i think i’ll stay in this madhouse.
This piece was originally posted on Substack on April 21, 2025 and migrated to BearBlog on March 19, 2026.