Negative Space

by B.R. Yeager

I thought I’d upset him, even though we’d only just been talking about Pokémon.

The truth never makes sense unless you force it to, just like anything.

All the world blurred, a vibrating hemorrhage, and it was fine because I could finally feel how little impact I’d ever have on the world. Losing that dread that one day you’ll somehow ruin everything, for yourself and everyone else. The realization that I could simply leave and the world wouldn’t miss me.

What forces are we unable to sense that nonetheless influence our existence? Is it possible for us to become aware of these forces? And, perhaps most terribly, what do these forces intend for us?

I see you. You hide behind your grinning masks but I see you. And God sees you as well.”

You know I say that I am better now, better now. I only say that ‘cause you’re not around, not around.

Not Post Malone being the background music to an absolute horrorshow lmao…

In darker ages, demons were thought to represent force devoid of life. They had not yet become anthropomorphized—they were akin to the weather, or a flood or a rockslide. Demons represented systems that could not be read utilizing the knowledge of the era. And in that way they persist. Are the words I speak inside or outside my self? We are vessels perpetually afflicted by alienation and contamination. Our bodies become contaminated by hormones in our food and drinking supplies. Our bodies gradually fill with microplastics. The components comprised of “us” are, with increasing frequency, comprised of materials that originate from outside ourselves. Therefore, it is ludicrous to ignore the degree to which even our physical selves are “outside.” Here, we have no trouble accepting that external forces are altering the essence of our identities. Yet notions that our thoughts, concepts, ideas exist and produce effects beyond our corporal vessels are outright dismissed.