shadows in the dark

i don't want to die.

a period at the end of that phrase is not good enough. there's more to the sentiment than a period, a single phrase, perhaps even a book could capture. it's something indescribable. unfathomable. but i feel it, flitting between the folds of my brain.

many "young people" are supposedly characterized by their belief that they are indestructible, immortal, or something to that effect. i feel my mortality far too well. for the last couple years, every time i sit or lay in the dark, i feel myself dying. the subtle feeling, if it can be called even that, of losing consciousness and never regaining it. in dreams i live, i dance upon ideas of excitement and adventure, feel the energy of youth coursing in my veins. then the veins themselves realize the folly of dreams, start to whither, crack as vines hung dry from a branch. dust, falling through my husk. waking is a nightmare sent howling into my awareness with the light or darkness, whichever it may be i am dying and i know it with all of my being. escape is futile at best as i realize that there is no running from the lonely melting into oblivion. if only there was a way to live. i see images of my closest friends from years ago, all laughing and playing, colorful hair dancing as we jump and turn our heads. their faces are fuzzy. smiles in their eyes, laughter in their skin, but they're not there. never will i regain the laughter, ecstasy, and wonderful abandon of camaraderie and shared experience. we're all grown up, dramatized, going to jobs, and too serious for the true fun we all once regarded as a way of life. my life is ending. painfully. every day i find that i am less at home, less "right" than the day before. a day lost. now another minute. fleeting glimpses catch me when i'm out with a newfound friend, wind whipping across our faces, the energy of life written on our visages as a painter's mind might capture the wisp of the wind. it could never come out on a canvas, but dies in the mind with regret and snatches that piece of happiness. but those moments are just that; only sketches in a book whose pages look smudged, seem void of meaning or life.

when all is lost and gone, will anyone remember me? does it matter? do i care? what effect does it really have when a person dies, if there is no reason to live. existence, to be in the world, to feel and find, to experience the richness of your chemistry, to bond with others to fulfill a deeper passion that it may blossom into a vision of hope? and wither as all blossoms do? when heaven loses its power, its hope of never dying, where do we find ourselves that do not want to give up our experiences?

halos and colors. focus, blur, draw close. lights fade to shadows. through slits, nothing sharp will pierce. darkness. explosion of neurons, folding, re-fold. death.