Dead Inside

by Chandler Morrison

Too warm. Too wet. Too alive.

weird, tense, and unnatural.

Hell hath no fury.

You can’t put a label on me. You wouldn’t want to.

Overreaction—it’s the American way.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

too much color in her face, too much light in her eyes

I imagine her colder, paler. She could be almost perfect, if she wasn’t oozing all that spritely vitality. There is no greater tragedy than beauty needlessly wasted.

it’s probably because of my general demeanor, which in the past and present has been described as “unapproachable” and “creepy”.

“I love it almost as much as I love the smell of the recently dead.”

even creeps like me can have a sense of humor.

reeks deliciously of impending death,

Her flesh is still too warm.

make no mistake, I have no delusions of sanity;

yellowed by the throes of putrid rot.

“I hope they died, too. I hope it was painful for them.

If ever there existed true grief in its purest form,

There’s something about her that isn’t quite right.

this isn’t what it looks like,”

that would require more fucks than I have to give.

Her absence carries more weight than did her presence.

Yikes, didn’t see that part coming.

I’m not a decent human being, and I don’t know much about comfort,

He didn’t deserve to die.”

I’d pity her if I was capable of it.

I spent a solid fifteen seconds somewhat distraught over my disturbing lack of guilt.

there’s something wrong with you. I can tell.

Not being a conversationalist, most discussions I’ve had with people, that lasted more than a few minutes, usually ended up getting weird. I always say something

I suppose there’s just something about meeting someone who’s even more fucked up than you are.

Don’t feel bad for me. This is the way I’ve always wanted to die. I’m very lucky. How many people get to die exactly the way they want to?”

I like that you’re so fucked up.”

This must be what rapture looks like.

Death is funny like that.

This young man, like so many others, is here for one purpose. To die.

am not one of them. I do not want to be among them.

my blood turns to cold, brown slush.

I feel a headache begin to settle in, burrowing itself into my skull and building a thorny nest.

“Please, don’t do this to me.”

cuts, gashes, smears of gore, some missing front teeth,

“I’m . . . not . . . okay,”

He doesn’t like talking to me; I think I creep him out,

Everything is just a means to an inevitable end that never comes soon enough.

“It doesn’t have to be like this.”

My mind is eating away at itself

the mind is a terrible thing to taste . . .

Please, please, leave me the fuck alone.

My vision starts to blink in and out and turn gray, and finally narrows into a tunnel-like tube, and then it’s all gone and all black, and I’m falling backward and slipping away, and then I’m gone.

Everything is prettier in the dark.

“what the fuck has happened to you.”

I’m really not sure how a person would feel after killing someone.