The Demise of Me [Foreward]

I left a little part of me behind before I went. I lost a part of me while I was there. I found a part of me to fill the hole, and then I left behind that little bit of me I found.

And then I came home. Not different. Not new. Perhaps renewed. Perhaps even unsure of how to feel. But if there is one thing I am sure about, I think I need a new haircut.

Where am I?

The clock still ticks the same, milo ais still tastes the same, the malls still smell the same. The changing of gears seem more familiar, how can I forget the traffic, even the weather is its usual dreary self. It is almost like waking up from a dream, a 5-month-long dream, and waking up...to life. Everything so familiar, so routine, so synchronize, like clockwork.

But that is where the problem lies. It was not a dream. It was more than that, so much more. It was a dream come true. (God, how cliché can I get.) I was living a dream I dreamed; a dream where hopes were high and life was worth living. (Evidently more cliché than I had expected.) Oh, if you could only imagine.

Do not misjudge me however, I am anything but ungrateful. My family is my home and will forever be in my heart. But is it wrong to yearn for something more, something bigger, something better? Or maybe all this yearning is really just a yearning for escapism. To escape this shit hole I currently feel trapped in. Pinned to the ground with walls enclosing, I break out into cold sweats as claustrophobia gets the better of me. The air thins and I am left gasping, choking, dying. My only armament is the dream I dream, the only one thing holding my head above the water, pushing me to fight for my survival; the only thing keeping my hope afloat.

I clutch that dream tightly in my hand, like clutching a golden ticket to Utopia, afraid of ever letting go, afraid of letting it slip through my fingers. But honestly, I think what I am really afraid of, is letting myself go and never realising that dream. It is a terrible fear to have to bare on one's mind, because like a parasite, that fear leeches on you and sucks the life out of you. You become dry, barren, withered like an empty vessel, devoid of any emotion. You lose sight of who you are, of the things that matter around you, of the beauty in life.

Frustrated, I am quickly losing the plot. Immense pressure is building up as I continually fail to live up to my own expectations. Entrapped in a gas chamber, there I stood, and watched chemical gases fill the chamber. Catching my eye before I lose all consciousness, a pair of eyes looking inward from the outside, staring hard right at me. Eyes so full of disappointment, despondency and dismay. Eyes filled with such bitterness and sadness. Eyes bearing an uncanny resemblance to ones I have seen before. Those eyes...

...they were mine.