matrix

i am a wanderer in the desert gone too far from the oasis. it is too much to ask of me to go back. i have been running to mirages, glistening dark splendour. please stay. please stay. the illusion slips through my fingers and i crumple to the floor again.

awakening is a return to emptiness. what is left now but the same old, the stale silent heat and the brutal indifference of the sand and the expanse that goes on forever. early on warning bells went off in my head: i saw too many parallels between you and him - in who you were, and in how i began to put my heart at your feet. i didn't want to let myself make the same mistake again but the mirage glistened and soon the illusion became too beautiful to stay where i was. i let myself be drawn in. protected it. defended it. i knew it for what it was, but i didn't let myself give in to reality. let me live this lie. let me pretend. glimpses of truth showed themselves from time to time: the scaffolding of my sky would begin to show its cracks, its tears, its glitches, and i grew afraid, i didn't want to see. i learnt to identify those dangerous moments of realisation, and to dip my head at the right times.

my afternoons are too free. i lie in bed, stare at the lights, and it comes back to me: what now? who will catch you? and who cares if you exist? you are completely alone, an insignificant blip, there is no one around to notice or catch you if you fall. other people are only mirages, illusions you run to, code-generated avatars that do not care.

seal yourself up in airtight solitude. master the art of being smilingly indifferent; only then can you appreciate the mirages.