There lies within the ribcage of my bones an apathy of my broken soul. It hums within the graveyards of lingering dreams, an insect trapped inside the idea of who I could have been. I feel it crawl beneath my shallow skin, a soft rebellion against the lethargy of mind and flesh. It twirls behind the prison bars of my heart and lungs - a reminder of my humanity, of the child who dreamt in futures made of what-ifs. And yet still, my breath is heavy, and my eyes are blurred; I walk only because gravity insists. I have become a vessel of almosts and not-quites, stitched together by the memory of wanting. And still, the insect hums - a flicker of the flame I once called passion, a quiet yet constant whisper that, despite it all, I breathe.

Time runs ahead of me, and I am stuck - frozen within myself, watching from a distance. A by-passenger in the slow unraveling of my own life. Everything moves, yet I remain. My grasp on the light is close - it always has been - but my limbs refuse to follow. There is no greater tragedy than this: to be born with a mind capable of building cathedrals, but with a body that only wants to disappear. I stare at the ceiling as the sun climbs higher, as the world begs me to rise, and still I lie there, trapped beneath the weight of my own skin. My inability to get out of bed is killing me - slowly driving me into an existential agony that even the angels who care for me can do nothing but weep.

Anhedonia was her name - eyes of sorrow, and tears her theme. And yet still, she does nothing but steal. A thief made of disease, a shadow stitched from memory, a whisper of the past that once showed smiley teeth.

“What is the point?” she asks, wrapping herself in a black veil that never lifts.

There’s no punctuation in a sentence that didn’t even begin.