Shell of a Man

Every night, as the world went to sleep with its misery tucked safely under a pillow, he lay awake. Wearing a cloak of his shadow, he lurked out into the deathly silence of the moon outside. He walked in the streets where the secrets linger. The moon up above did not remind him of fairies or dreams or hope or any of those delusions. For when he looked up at the moon, he remembered a heart that once beat inside him, its rhythm comprised of love notes and joy; he remembered the face of a cure that had come to him and laid his bleeding mind to rest and peace. His hands were callous from the amount of work he did each day in the valley of doom. His eyes – as still yet calm as an iron sea that melts your heart. He had everything; he lost everything, for that is often the way of the world. They told him love would fix him, that all he needed was to believe and never give up. But he had done all that. Being drunk on these mere ideas had gotten him nowhere. He had put burned razors across his golden skin, drowned in the bitter taste of time and vodka, sat near fires of desperation and burned his thoughts in their flame. Yet none of it had done him any good whatsoever. Yes, he had a beautiful mind and an unlimited passion inside him that screamed louder than any cries of pain ever have. He knew the limits to sanity and had crossed them to be the genius that he was. Pain and heartache was the sword he fought his fears with. Sitting in a black room with his demons and having a talk with them was his favourite past-time. But this was not the sort of piece he wanted. So each time he asked himself why he was so lost, the only answer he gave himself was that he had lost the key to his heart; and now its door remains locked for any sort of love or hate to enter. That is why the world has labelled him a shell of a man.

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