I live in a mental asylum

With shadows for company

So powerful are my shadow-friends

That they’ve erected the walls

Of my asylum

For their existence

 

In its confinement

I yearn for friendship and company

Even if it is of the Unreal

The shadows beckon me to listen

Their amorphous forms speak in booming voices

That echo and resonate.

 

Their thoughts agree with my thoughts

That’s why we are friends…

We jog together in 10000-word dissertations

Or tickle each other with 140-character tweets

And I feel accomplished

That I now have friends in high places…

 

I now speak their slang

And their concerns

Are my concerns

Their outrage is my outrage

Happiness lies in the camaraderie

Between one bubble and another.

 

When you burst my bubble

I stand vacant

Alone in my madness…

And with this painful awareness

That I can’t see, or hear, or feel anyone

Outside of the thick walls

Of my mental asylum.

 

I have been shut in

To be protected from any contact with the breathing…

My walls are thick, impenetrable and safe

My shadow-friends erected them so that they could play

And oh yes, my walls have names

Please meet: Ideology. Fear. Pain. Self-loathing.