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Life Buoys

Dark room, tepid air, hot sheets.

Rays of evening sun sneaking through the closed curtains,

Gnawing at him like a lingering parasite.

His breath being stuck in his throat,

Contained by a tight, invisible leash.


His frail hand hovers over the medication box.

The squares from Saturday and Sunday are still containing the same

little pill he just consumed this morning.


His fingers find their way around the medicament.

Infatuated, he rolls the pill back and forth, gaze capturing the golden shimmer it is glazed in.


He is silently mourning.

He thinks back.

About how they are sun kissed like he once was.

Happy even.

About how he wishes that they could give him what he

once lost.


For a long time he thought in chemical structures.

Emotions were just hormones with different effects.

Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin.

It was predictable, calculable, easy.


Till he fell in this dark hole he thought it was easy.

Till the little pills lost their previous effect he thought it was easy

But was it ever easy?


His therapist once told him those pills were like life buoys.

They keep you afloat, but they can‘t do the swimming for you.


He did not believe it at first.

He did not want to believe it.

Somehow he still denies the truth.

How could he not?

Wouldn't it be perfect if the easier way is not only the better but the only one for you?


His mouth forms into a crooked smile and another pill slips past his dry lips.

It tastes bitter but, oh, so sweet.

And as he continues laying there in the dark,

He still wishes he had a chemical heart.

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