State of Dead

I sit alone inside the dark and watch the headlights drag the wall,

And listen to the silence ringing, waiting for the sky to fall.

There is no beauty in the suffering, no romantic, tragic pain,

Just a dull and heavy pressure thrumming deep inside the brain.

You don’t need a sixfoot hole to know the way it feels to rot,

You just wake up every morning tied into a heavy knot.

Staring at the bathroom glass to meet a total stranger’s eyes,

And practice how to stretch a smile to sell a dozen different lies.

“I’m holding up,” “I’m only tired,” “I just need to catch my breath,”

While quietly you acclimatise to living in a waking death.

They write about the reaper like a phantom swinging in the night,

But death is just the slow erosion of your will to stand and fight.

It’s the laundry in the corner, it’s the molding of the food,

It’s the absolute collapse of any hopeful, human mood.

It is sitting on the mattress edge and staring at your shoes,

With absolutely nothing left to give, and nothing left to lose.

There is no sudden, violent ending, no spectacular farewell,

Just a solitary sentence in a quiet, private hell.

The world keeps spinning on its axis, people laugh and cars drive by,

While you are trapped inside a skull where all your better angels die.

So keep your hollow sympathies and leave the useless prayers unsaid,

I am breathing, and I’m walking, in the silent state of dead.