This is how you do it. I explained. Step one. Step two.
It happens for someone else because of you. And your solace is you made it possible. There's money. Steady income, but it's only enough sometimes. When you're so tired that you're unable to process the fact that it could've been yours. Not that you wanted it, but that you gave it away. Half price. Maybe less. That you're too much of a coward to live in the world you've built. So they buy your bridges. Your castles. And you stay in your little house. With its spider ceilings. And wonder how the shadows fall that way. If they really do. Or if it's just your imagination.
Then you forget for a while. Because you facilitate it.
Go back to selling. And drinking. And romanticizing your loneliness. Your words. Your own Dorian Grey. Your words. Your portrait. Withering. Stowed carefully in a high room without stairs. Or windows.
Don't look. You can't see anyway. The paints as it wrinkles. The colors as they fade.
There was always this darkness. We just closed our eyes and pretended we chose it.
I never wanted to be, but sometimes I wonder if I should've tried. Because what am I now. Change in their pockets as they walk.
He said he didn't understand. And I thought to myself maybe you shouldn't.
We know what we need to. And anything more will only hurt.
We teach and sometimes they learn. But who will teach us.
Those so many words I still don't understand.
The envelopes were so thick. But still, two stamps were all they needed.