I haven’t been sleeping too much in the last couple of weeks. Distractions are keeping me awake, they keep me entertained, they make me forget my problems and responsibilities. But distractions don’t last forever. There’s no cigarette that burns eternally, no glass that stays full. Time takes them all away. Time is my enemy now. He takes my strength, he makes me weak, he makes me realize my true conditions. I feel pity for myself. I have to look myself in the mirror everyday, wondering how it’s going to be today, questioning every decision I make. Every step I take. Listen. “tic-toc”. “tic-toc”. “tic-toc.” Never ending. Time

When will I wake up and realize this is all a dream? A vision, a guide for what I’ll have to face in the future, when the hero in me comes knocking on my door to tell me that it’s time to wake up. Like the call of spring upon the bear’s fur after a long winter. It’s my time to fight the evil, and rise against the usurper. Against the monster that I’ve made. The one that now’s living within me. I won’t be prepared. “I won’t go”, I said. “He’ll make me vanish into the dust again”. ”Craven”, he yelled. My eyes met the ground, ashamed I closed the door.

I made my life pretty complicated, more than it should be. I’m giving things up as soon as they stop working the way they should. I’m giving up those things that I don’t think are worth fighting for. I’ve embraced entertainment as a way to waste my time. Mediocrity is growing, all around me, becoming my second skin. It feels soft and firm, It feels so good. Reason tries to convince me there’s another way, a better one. I’ve always know that. I’m trying to validate my actions with invalid excuses. How ironic.

My body wants to make everything right, like it was before I lost my innocence.

I fear the day I realize that I’m not special. Not a prodigy, Not a “chosen one”. I’m not a hero. I’m a boy who got beat up by a monster. The monster he used to play with before the boy lost his parents. I’m nothing but a cheap imitation of what I should be and of what people think I am. I guided them by the difficult path, the only one my eyes allowed me to see. My path. I demanded their respect, but I never showed them mine. I failed them, and I failed myself. I’m sorry. I’m not their leader, they don’t trust me anymore.

Asleep. I open my eyes, I can hear the birds singing. I see the squirrels running on the trees. Innocent, probably unaware of themselves. I see people walking. I can hear them talking. I’m a lonely watcher. A spirit in nature, a ghost in the crowd. A heart is beating inside of my chest but I don’t know who it belongs to. I only know it’s keeping me alive. I don’t know a lot of things, yet I wish I could know everything.

Will I ever really change? Will I always be afraid?

“Craven”, he yelled. “Craven”, I heard.