dope head

In an instant, everything crumbled into a pile of dross. I searched your face, hoping to find the warmth and familiarity I once knew, but it was cold, unyielding, like stone. I remember how your eyes used to gleam under the light, specks of stardust swirling in your irises. I remember how I’d secretly steal glances, memorising your features with quiet reverence. You weren’t my favourite at first sight; it took time. Slowly, methodically, you worked your way closer to my heart, to that unfathomable corner of my soul. But now, the person I cherished so fiercely feels lost to me, a spectre slipping out of reach.

I spun a thousand reasons in my mind, trying to explain the sudden shift in you, but I knew the truth. The only truth that mattered: I left you.

“Stop pushing me away. Soon, you’ll have no one,” you’d say.

“And what’s wrong with that? I’m used to having no one,” I’d reply, a lie I told so often I almost believed it.

One morning, I woke and realised that my very essence had become dissonant, unrecognisable. I was growing too accustomed to you, addicted to your presence. Somehow, you had become the axis of my existence, shaping my every thought, every breath, every fragment of myself. When you were gone, even briefly, I would collapse under the weight of the emptiness you left behind. It wasn’t healthy. I’d shiver when you were near, and I’d shiver when you weren’t. At first, I swore to myself I wouldn’t fall into this trap. I told myself I could keep my distance. But it was a slippery slope, and I fell hard, helplessly. My mistake was taking even the smallest sip of you, a taste I was never meant to have.

You were a forbidden euphoria, a heady intoxication that carried me to heights I’d never known, showing me things far beyond the monotony of my everyday life. But you became a sickness I couldn’t cure. I knew I had to purge you from my being.

I began by reclaiming my nights, refusing to sleep in your bed and returning to my own. Then I reclaimed my evenings, my most cherished hours. I stopped sipping from your goblet and drank only from my own. I lit my own cigarettes, no longer waiting for your hand to spark them alive. Finally, I stopped watching sunrises through the reflection of your eyes, those eyes once filled with stardust and light. I even abandoned the solace of your shadow, though it had been my sanctuary.

It was excruciating. My shoulders still trembled where your head used to rest, and my heart bore the echoes of your weight. But I knew I couldn’t keep living off you, clinging to the illusion we had built. I had been drowning in this fallacy, tightening my own chains with every excuse I made. In breaking free, I found no comfort, only truth. And maybe, for now, that’s enough.