(Freestyle writing)

It’s been so strange returning to a place I hardly ever remember visiting. I created a writer’s cafe profile back in 2015, and I was actually writing and submitting work. I’ve just read them, and they totally weren’t up to my current standards.

What’s strangest is those emotions and those feelings which are still linked in my heart. Coming back after so many years, I remember the darkness in me. It was a time where I was miserable, depressed, and in many ways still a boy.

There’s a photo of me from five years ago, an unenthusiastic young man with mental health issues. And then to see who I have become now as a man, I do not recognise him. And to come back to the place where he sat late at night, hoping they will appreciate him.

It has been an incredibly lonely journey, and that young man will be survived through a lonely, unfulfilling life. And now I cover those sharp edges with medication�"Seroquel, Rexulti, anti-depressants. I’ve experimented with hallucinogens, and seen the inner workings of my mind.

But that young boy has died and is no longer with us. The man I am whom takes his place is cold-hearted and calloused. I ache with frustration and mourning for lost youth. Knowing that this love once possessed by a boy, has turned into sour bitterness as a man. Woe be I, in this sullen life.

Though I pray to God he does not hear me. His uproarious laughter fills my ears. But as I said to my friend in jest, is the soul not a pool as opposed to a static frame? When we are but an amalgamation of spirit directing our qi to better things. And like a flower I have unfolded, and tomorrow I shall wither.