It had been months.

I was not that person anymore. That bed had belonged to someone else that had once lived, a life of joy, in a happy home.

Inside these bones and when I’d stray, towards these bad, bad thoughts; I’d end up wondering what I had been doing at the time.

Where had I been hiding, when the stranger found her?

I held a brush. It erased the past. Within me I realized: the only deities worth worshipping were the clouds. They who watched everything from above, devoid of a sense of self, always to expire; a few hours later.

I’d stay up every other night and ponder on the meaning of their existence. But the truth is, I still don’t know what it’s about.

Perhaps, if one happens to find spirit in things that lack significance, then possibly that in itself, has meaning.

Years passed.

I cannot pinpoint when it started for sure. However, at some point I'd get up in the morning and, upon gazing into the mirror, had trouble seeing my face. I could perfectly perceive the rest of the bathroom without anything becoming a blur. But, my own features, they were exiled.

"Who are you?" I’d ask into the void.

Painting became a necessity. Spewing color after color in an attempt to find, or at least perhaps create, an answer to this question: I held the brush responsible for abolishing my walls. Yet as time went on, no matter how many skins I shed, I couldn't find the one I’d been seeking underneath. I felt like a homeless man, drifting further away from any proper clothes. I wanted to be clean. It unsettled me beyond reason. I started to grow mad on these emotions that drugged me with their concepts, as they abused the person I had aimed to become.

What am I?

From then on out it was just a matter of pretending.

Waking up.

Eating breakfast.

It was always the same meal, because I was undeserving of anything more. I'd pick at the burned toast with my only fork, promising myself that today would be new, and that I would find the right shade; the correct shapes and a word to describe these feelings that haunted me so.

It took three hundred and twenty-three sunsets to notice the consequences of my actions. By this point, I hadn't anymore needs for ridiculous words of comfort.

Deprived of answers, I created myself a false happiness by completing work after work. It kept me breathing. It kept me living. It kept me here. It was the much needed attachment, I had been yearning for.

It was the sentiment of feeling whole, a bay to anchor these weights tied to my shins, that I’d dragged for far too long. It was the joy I felt upon completing a piece.

And so, I had to do it again. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the one thereafter followed by the others for the rest of the year; and the remainder of my existence.

It was my raison d’être; it was my love.

But, my wrists, they would not work with me anymore. And the soles of my feet gave way, as I tumbled to the ground. I remember hearing my brush falling with a plunk as I hit the raw, merciless, and unforgiving floor.

Like a sailor out at sea in an ocean enraged, it drowned me, until I could breathe no more.

I remained, wilting between bright orange pillowcases for an hour. But an hour quickly turned into two, and two spoiled into a day, which then led to a week, followed by a month that rotted into years.

Still, I don't know what's wrong with me.

I trusted the thought, that if I poured all of my being into the shimmers of the past, the ones that appeared on the icy horizon of a pale dawn ruled by Winter, would turn into something; a passion. A canvas that had yet to be stained.

I could throw away the images, the creations, and painful reminders. But my flame has burned out. My limbs are too nimble. And I cannot speak, nor with body or mind. My shell is hollow, yet this apple is ripe, and keeps my blood running with songs of the heart.

Ah, I wonder when I began to falter, labeling such radical measures as the only way out. Perhaps it's always been there, inside of me, and I'd been in denial of myself. I tried to be a speck of dust that had dreams, a concept of the world different from my own where I'd believe that there was a greater plan for me, and a place where I was destined to be.

Perhaps, had I tried a little harder, given it more time, no matter the number of years, I wouldn’t have succumbed to the sympathy of sorrow and despair.