Ghost of Me

Here is the link to my tiktok reading & explination of where the idea for this story came about.

That fucking clock haunts me.

The green light steady as the sun in the sky, and seemingly just as bright, glaring at me, the face reading 2:13 am.

I hate it.

Another night passing at a snail's pace. The story of my fucking life now. I can’t sleep, I can’t dream, I can’t create.

Writer’s block.

No, it's more like an empty well. Throw a rock down it and you'll find a vast pit of nothingness.

A black hole lurking in the back of my brain, sucking every last ounce of inspiration out of me.

I used to be more than this, more than a sleepless skeleton strung out on whatever I've happened to take to numb the world.

I’m a mess. A train wreck of a person.

A loser unworthy of the cost of upkeep. Every last dime I have left is poured into the effort of trying to recreate the nuance of those early days.

Years ago, I was young, obviously, and I was full of life. Writing was something I loved, not something to dread.

Now I fucking hate it.

There is nothing but blank pages that need to be filled, and all I can offer is this endless darkness. An empty hole in my head where the words escape.

Just like that fucking canvas.

It sits in the corner, haunting me as an example of my failure. The black hole of it sucking me in, day by day, night by night.

No matter what I do, it isn’t finished. I just add more and more, but it shifts, it’s wrong. Nobody would ever want this piece of shit on their wall.

So it sits, unfinished.

Heavy with layers of paint plastered upon it chaotically. Carelessly. The same way I stumbled through my life.

I’ve lost count by now of how many layers there are.

I used to have nightmares of that thing, of falling into it like Alice through a looking glass. Except my wonderland is filled with horrors beyond imagination.

I wish I could go back. Desperately so.

Before I dug myself into this creative rut, this self-made grave. I used to mine those horrors like blood diamonds.

Extracting a new fear nightly, and expelling it across the page or canvas is what brought me fame.

It was a recipe for disaster.

I bled it out through ink on the page and paint on canvas.

The colors collected under my nails, and splattered across my skin, are often reminiscent of a crime scene.

One of my own making.

After all. It was I who lit myself on fire. It was I who forced myself to burn out so damn quickly.

I killed my own creativity by trying to pull it out of myself, no care for the damage it was doing as I did.

After all. I was getting paid, right?

What I didn't understand at the time was the exact price. Something paid in flesh and blood, figuratively and literally.

I became my own creative cancer. Eating at my inspiration until there was nothing left, not even a crumb to feed the pests in my apartment.

So now I am left chasing my tail. Chasing a high. Chasing dead dreams long buried.

Now I am a shadow of my former self. A shell. A husk of humanity that used to host a soul. Now I am nothing.

A ghost of me.

Down, down, down the rabbit hole I go. Where do I stop... Nobody knows. The horrors persist, and so do I.

That fucking clock, it haunts me.

2:13 am.

I haunt myself.