The Woes of Narration

There is a loneliness that cannot be replaced.

So many hallways and hierarchies I only traverse in my mind. So many characters I keep in constant company that only exist in my head. So many lost figments of time I will never cry through, rejoice through, rage through, live through.

I create too many narratives in my head when I’m alone. They run wild. They take me to countries I’ve never been. They turn me into a person who doesn’t dominate, but who still exists in, who I presently and physically and concretely am.

I conceive—

Dylan: pining, indulgent, brooding. I’ve killed myself four times and wake up after every one of these deaths in sweat and tears. I am hip-hop without the heritage. I am in neighbourhoods I shouldn’t be in. Fucking faceless, nameless, replaceable bodies. I am indifferent to their faces.

Sophie: beautiful, fascinating, charismatic, self-absorbed, terrifying. I am the soul to my art, the soul in my art, the soul of my art. I am Billy Joel on the piano, Basquiat on canvas, Black Sabbath and Sum 41 in my bedroom, Courtney Love on the streets. A hypocrite.

Freya: distant, libido-driven, good-hearted, guilty. I am the throng of thoughts that fill your heads in the aftermath. Heaped with onerous responsibility and expectation. I am the terrible anxiety people should be so lucky to never get, and yet here I am, hard-pressed for penitence and pertinence and potential, fighting against the vacuous strobe of a violin, playing from my heart, without fully being happy.