Cell

[Poem/Fiction]

I feel as though I’ve angered some old God

Whatever else could explain such an existential torment?

Whatever else could mend and bend the fabric of reality for the sole purpose of pain?

Whatever else could drive me into the edge of insanity with mere presence?

I do not know when the punishment started, what I could have possibly done, or how I can possibly atone. Time has destroyed all stories that memories make, and now their rubble only serves to crush me into oblivion. There is no sense, no continuity, only a perpetuity of time. I am stuck, nothing here moves, all of it only accumulates, creating a mass of pain and suffering that is deep enough to cover my feet, and it weighs on them enough to lock me to forever.

The past does not come apart, the future does not come together, rather, instead of any livable movement flowing through the moments in time there is a perpetual atrophy of everything living. Time triggers claustrophobia, things and beings are crushed within its walls, no life escapes. It is enclosed in this casket of time that I will spend the rest of my days, which are uncountable as they are both numerous and null. There is a certain sadism to reality, one that is far too intense for my masochism, it wants me to suffer, it functions in suffering.

I pace around the prison, I stop and lay on the ground, I attempt to distract myself with play, I hug whatever thing is closest and softest. All in mere moments that last an eternity and eternities that last mere moments. Time constantly redefines itself, it stretches and compresses depending on what will make me suffer more strongly, it invades the reality of my memories and redefines time there in the past too. All in constant flux and movement that functions entirely to repress and torture movement and change. Everything will last as long as it hurts.

Thought that passes as wind in my head turns to currents which turns to storms, my own mind tortures me, and when it is done, tortures me again for spending such precious time being tortured. As long as there is pain to be extracted time will flow and stop as necessary. Anxiety mounts, the void becomes the only escape, life is atrophied.

Constant past slams through the walls of the cell, their impact results in nothing, and past falls to the ground and begins to accumulate. It is a sludge, there is nothing beautiful here, nothing worth keeping, as soon as it splashes onto the ground it becomes like mud. It weighs on me, pulls on my feet, makes movement harsher, makes me trip and fall onto it, getting my face dirty with the past. I feel like sinking into it at times, I feel its pressure pull on me. The past has only been a pool of suffering, everything that becomes past becomes pain, and as pain it torments me.

I see it getting deeper and deeper, soon enough it will be up to my knees, then up to my shoulders, and then it will drown me.

The future looms, that is what it does.

In a place so cramped there is no space for hope to come through, rather, the future is looming death. It hangs in there, right on top of me where I can’t reach it, like a lightbulb in the room. It shines its light on me, and it burns, I feel the light particles passing through my skin like tiny daggers piercing my body. The future is not hope, there cannot be hope while the future hangs there. It is constant pain, the constant destruction of my body, and it terrifies me more than anything else here. Its presence is everywhere, there is no escaping it.

I look up, it is there, looming, I cannot reach it, and it brings only pain.

I feel as though I’ve angered some old God

Whatever else could explain such an existential torment?

Whatever else could mend and bend the fabric of reality for the sole purpose of pain?

Whatever else could drive me into the edge of insanity with mere presence?

There are moments where it is all too cramped, I feel short of breath and like everything is coming apart, but the nature of this place is that nothing ever does. Rather the moment lasts forever, after it is done, it's as if it lasted but a second. And I am back where I started, I lay on the floor, in the middle of the room, letting the future shine on me and the past to make a soft bed. I feel tired of it all, but resting only keeps me here.

Perhaps I could try breaking out of here, perhaps that won’t just bring me back where I started, I could stand up and raise my head up high, sprint as fast I can and break through.

The Past does not come apart, The Future does not come together.

Static, once again.

Torment, once again.

But it is not repetition.

It is perpetuity.