Somnus

by Kakera   Sep 23, 2019


My heart is empty; my soul is divided.
I am but a hollow shell of my former selves,
walking in a daze through each day
like a zombie yet hungering for nothing.

Overwhelmed yet again with sorrow and grief,
I've been suffocating for years now,
drowning constantly without even seeing water:
I just don't know how to breathe easily anymore.

Buddhists say that life is a sea of bitterness
and that we may find serenity and peace
by letting go of our obsessions and attachments,
but even after letting go, all I have left is indifference.

And that's the curse that all these deaths around me
have blessed me with -an indifference to my own suffering.
I am too tired to even try and make things better,
because for every step forward I take,
the universe finds new ways to steal anything and everything
that has ever meant something to me, away from me.

I've forgotten how long it's been since I last ate.
I feel indifferent to the hunger, secretly hoping
that I could just starve to death so that my pain would finally end.

And even to begin with, I can't even remotely remember how long it's been
since I naturally fell asleep without it being chemically induced.
Joy to me is the most beautiful illusion - and ironically, I don't want to wake up.

Because only in my dreams am I ever happy these days.
So how cruel is it not of the world to deprive me of even sleep?

I am so tired. I have battled for longer than I believed was possible.
Now, my days are spent counting the hours
before I can force myself to chemically induce sleep again.

Sleep being all that I have left that I care about.
Now that the world has once again proven
that the universe is indifferent to my suffering,
and yet again taken that which I love the most away from me.

    report violation
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Latest Comments

  • 4 years ago

    by Kitty Cat Lady

    This was difficult to read Kakera. I believe indifference is the most dangerous of emotions - all hope is lost during waking hours and dream-less sleep is the only comfort. I don't have any clever advice to share except to say that channelling pain into creativity such as this piece, tells me that there's still some fight left. Keep purging these thoughts and sharing them with us x
    =^.^=

    • 4 years ago

      by Kakera

      Ironically, one of the most profound deep-dives into philosophical topics I've ever enjoyed was in a videogame, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2. It takes us on a sixty-ish hour journey through the philosophies of that universe glanced at through lenses of both existentialism and nihilism and explores those philosophies at great depth. Surprising, isn't it, that a video-game from fifteen years ago was so deep?

      Anyway, what I was gonna bring up is that an oft-cited line from the main character's mentor in that game, is one that sticks with me and is a valuable line outside any of the contexts I've just given you. That line is:
      "Apathy is death."

      I agree with that line, and what it means. Apathy is death. Yeah. It rings so true in so many ways. Apathy really is the death of all soul, both creative and moral conscience, and our humanity in some ways too.

      Apathy is death. Such an amazingly profound line, from a video-game of all places.

    • 4 years ago

      by Kitty Cat Lady

      That's really interesting but I know what you mean about profound stuff from unlikely places. My favourite ever lyric is from a song called 'cold' by Annie Lennox, it says "dying is easy, it's living that scares me to death" ... I think it says so much about how hard life can be, sometimes death feels like the easy option ... but I'd rather wade my way through the hard bits for those special highlights that come along once in a while. :-) x
      =^.^=

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