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its up to you to make sense of this

By Rudraksh Dange · 17 November 2022

home, where the hawk circles, the dog prowls, and people dream an uneasy dreamthe corners of the bedrooms are memories in a prison, a black and white film reel of syringes and sadness fuelled euphoric highsthe day i met


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the corners of the bedrooms are memories in a prison, a black and white film reel of syringes and sadness fuelled euphoric highs

the day i met you was childhood’s vast plateau, just reachable peaks in every direction our eyes could wander

friendship with wolves and foxes, there didn’t seem to be better days to remember, and yet nostalgia finds cracks and slips through unseen, only to be felt anew

you dragged me down with you into that bottomless sea of unreality and chemical happiness. did that happiness count?

when it was done, no one could stop us from nursing our grief. the grief of a terrible symbiotic existence

an eternity of struggle later i stopped sinking deeper, rehabilitation as a photon i ascended and broke through the tedium of delirium

but you were still a sunken ship falling endlessly waiting for an impact that would shatter the already broken anchor of your life

i would find you at odd hours in the guest bedroom. i have no recollection of giving you a key to my house. the love i bore for you as a result of circumstance-

-the stars in your sky were never the same as mine. hesitation is necessary when you grab onto the line of destiny and follow it like soldiers marching to war

you were the god of endurance and pleasure. endure the pleasure until it consumes you whole

blue-tinted lips, skin paler than old animal bones, unresponsive, going through the unforgiving biology of death

i could’ve saved you, this wasn’t the first time you overdosed but i deemed it to be your last

your breath growing shallower by the moment. you had never looked so peaceful. it was only by the indifferent mercy of a vehicular accident bystander that i released you

colourless. breathless. lifeless.

the guilt almost washed over my relief but its strength could not compare as the relief belonged to both of us. my relief in life, yours in death.

- rudraksh dange

This piece was written for Psychophilics by Rudraksh Dange and is kept here so it stays readable. Where it first appeared →
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