Fear.

Fear; it’s what controls us. Choices are not made but determined by external factors far beyond our perception. We are bound by our weaknesses and slaves to our imagination. We spend every waking moment captivated by our fears. Tormented by such devastating realities; sickened truths that hide behind the doors fabricated within the realms of our subconscious minds.

To live is to fear, but to fear is to survive.

However, survival can only last until we begin to fear ourselves, consequently resulting in us being classed unfit to live in a socially manufactured environment. This fear will take its hold and seep its distorted illusions into the structure of our very being. We become an automaton; unstable and empty; unloved and helpless. We no longer were nor will be – just simply are. This is a life too valuable and sacred to erase, but too impaired and corrupt to exist. My life is your life, and yours is mine.

We are inseparable, but still ultimately separate.

Fear; it’s what created us. Every fear spawns from the minds of naïve children, they are lost somewhere between the distorted confusion and false reassurances, cushioned against the harsh realities of time and left blind to a world suffocated by its inhabitants. Thus, resulting in a cognitive imbalance that leaves us so fragile and so susceptible to life’s cruel doings without the resources to fight back. Taught to hate humanity and defend for only you. Who would trust someone who says a dog won’t bite when it already had. With these global conditions what chance is there of getting caught in an electrical storm or having to live with your mother in her old age and yours. How can you run out of money you never owned. Reared to believe in punctuality but never wanting to be the first one to arrive. Automatically oppose what’s different and fear what we don’t understand, like the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek. What happens in the first few years of existence is what contaminates our youth and abolishes any chance of a modern saviour.

We are what we’re raised to believe.

Fear; it’s what consumes us. Driven by substance to possess mental stability, a subtle calm rises as you disappear. Swallowed down with pills in the hope you’ll be caged inside just a little longer. We are judged by our actions, not our words. We speak only what they want us to yet we think what we believe; never can our thoughts and our words coexist in spoken harmony, always marred by their preferences and their values. We can only count down the days and fear what they label us, when our every move and syllable is studied; they incriminate us for your doings. These new fears and uncertainties cast shadows that darken the background of our decaying realities, lingering doubts that exemplify the inconsistency these changes have conjured. Emptiness surrounds a void of nothingness; so intense and conflicting, the very thought of its complex existence cuts deep within the heart of even the sanest of men.

New sights and new routines, but still the same conflicted story to tell.

Darkness surrounds us despite the stark whiteness that has become so grey against the overpowering contrast of your blackened heart. A white so pure and blinding, so innocent and barren, but never clean enough to wash away our tainted past. Vivid illusions stretching across the vast expanse of bare white wall, welcomes unwanted images, allowing them to dance across the screen of our distorted imagination. Illustrating the fable of our existence, my memories, and your decisions; a vivacious canvas detailing the haunting past we share. Waking up to the sound of a cell door closing deafens the obnoxious silence. The cold callous metal shining in the darkness is almost blinding. But the numbness that comes with the aftermath is what we’ll feel the most. The feeling of sheer loss brings forth a certainty that the endlessly painful end is nigh. I know, deep down, it’s all untouchable now, so far from reach; I can never stop what happened, never go back, never change the past.

Be it wrong or right, unjust or deserved. We are one in death.

Fear; it’s what haunts us. The life you knew washes away like dirt and blood circling the drain; I must wash away your sins to begin a new life with a fear of the present taking flight. You own nothing but your memories, although they’re not something you wholesomely deserve. With the little you have it’s always too much but it’s never anything you’ve earned. One thing we’ll cherish forever, one last letter. Struggle to decipher the scribbles on the envelope, make out a letter, a word, a name. How we wish we could see their faces and witness a smile reach their eyes. I’ll never see them again, never know if they’ll die before us, never say the last goodbye but feel guilt for the rest of our miserable life. Never know what path they took so I fear the past rising up and hope they don’t turn out like you. It all becomes surreal; dead as if you were no longer here. In the end you know it’s true. I can almost see it, the decaying corpse of our happiness rotting away with no possible saviour, no possibility of a last smile nor a last breath. The mix of dead emotions swirling inside our numb heart feel so distant as if I’ve entered a parallel world, a world void of life, just like your heart. Remember a moment when my heart had been a full world, with laughs and smiles and love.

One last solitary thought of days gone by permits me to welcome the end.

Fear; it’s what captivates us. As the end draws close we have little choice, fall asleep at night and let the memories crawl into the darkness or stay awake remembering; neither sound too appealing as both let a battling onslaught commence. The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. The dark void surrounding us becomes the catalyst of our unsettled mind, forced to reel over our thoughts and your actions as a movie played for one. It’s easy to forget that in this one body, there are two minds to watch, two minds to remember, two minds to fear. We relive it all, together throughout countless lingering dreams; our life and your untimely arrival that led us here. We appear as one but were never the same. What you love proves lethal to the ones I love, to the ones I hold dear. We cannot sleep as our mind never rests. Live again in the shadows of your past, a case study in psychology books, a face with no name, that psychotic man who killed his friend and pushed away all he knew. They’ll never know the truth. The past everyone will remember forever, it’s not what it seems - they’ll see me and not you; I never told anyone, I was always too scared, it’s too late now though, nobody knows. Everyone will always remember the police car pulling into the drive, flashing its red and blue neon lights. Tearing us away from everything you know, it’s now we realise this day will end on an unhappy note. We’ll see it again a million times more, the faces of those we love and the evil grin on your face as we’re pulled past the mirror in the hallway.

I’ll always remember how you ruined my life.

Fear; it’s what destroys us. Waking up to find you gone will never truly conclude the chronicle of an ill existence as our past lives on with or without you; the damage has already been done. We’ll live too long to live fearing death; acceptance would surely bring us bliss. We feel as if the earth beneath our body begins to shake, but the last remnants of sanity I hold offer plausible explanations, reminding us of my fears. It’s you that’s shaking, demanding to be freed. Wonder if my pleas can cast their sleeping hearts awake, we live on the right side, sleep on the left knowing when the end is nigh it’s either love or death; the decision was clear long ago and now, you know there’s no one left to harm. Closure draws near but not on truth or on integrity as sanity cannot be saved where none resided. Ignore the reasons and do away with sin, justice has never been a battle the simple man can win, easier to condemn then aid, throw away rather than save. As the medication wears away and our thoughts begin to scatter, a remaining thought lingers; a realisation that there is no way to mend something so complex and unknown. Admitted and checked, analysed and observed; told nothing but one word. It brings me no peace of mind to be labelled and drugged as the word constantly echoes in our brain cavity; Schizophrenia. The title is given but no help can be received, we must both cooperate to rid you from my life, but I’m the only one that wants you gone. No two people are the same and for some there is no hope, you are nobody within the world just a case or number, a statistic that amounts to nothing by itself. Needed by no one and missed by nothing in the grand scheme of things. Expendable and replaceable; old is forgotten but new generations follow in the same footsteps. You have only minutes before the next meds come, I know it’ll be quick. One thing I’m sure of; I’ll never be free from you. Minds become hazy and thought becomes twisted; I can’t suppress this incessant being any longer.

Only one of us can lead and right now it’s you.

Fear; it’s what defines us. As reality blurs and memories ignite, I’ll take the final breath and end your life. Shrill cries of sadistic pleasure ring out in the dead of night, heart leaps into your chest at the audible intrusion. Anxiety courses through your veins and singes your nerve ends as you appear in front of the phone. Something out of the ordinary is breaking your delicately selected routine. We don’t like that; there is no room for change, only structure. You answer, you leave, you see, we agree. Identify the body of your friend. We’ve seen him before quite like this, with a little more colour and drenched in red, you know you’ve seen him before. You leave, welcoming the return of a familiar routine. Although, this time, we’ll lock ourselves away a little longer; hurt a little deeper; smile a little wider. Remembering what happened that particular night - the time we saw your friend last - sparks some sick twisted enjoyment deep inside my core as we relive that night, so unsuspecting yet so worthy a prey. We remember it all so well and it shall happen again, sneaked out a razor on my best behaviour. We feel the sleek crimson slip through our fingers, we hear the laboured breaths surrounding us, we smell the thick tangy aroma suffocating the air and becoming one with the toxic oxygen, we see the liquid red carpeting the cold white flooring, painting it with our life, we taste the rich juices of a simple existence and choke back a laugh; life slips away so easily.

This was your life, just like any other. We live, we die.

Forever one in death; you can never be free from yourself.

This is everything we fear.