The people, they yell.

They shout at their own ignorance.

They raise their voices to the suffering of their own hearts.

I fill up, intoxicating the air around me, swimming in misery and warm alcohol.

I suggest they see my paintings, they suggest I see a psychiatrist.

Begging for money, finding golden stones of signifigance rolling down the deep oceans of people. I use them to buy myself paint: lemon smile; cherry love.

I slip the paint onto canvases of temperature decreasing melancholy. Stroking, washing, covering the white slates with worry.

I slip the paint onto my fragile tongue.

Maybe filling up on lemon smile will bring a grin to my face.

The slow intake of paint creating a masterpiece in my lungs- They say things that taste bad are good for you.

The Earth's rotation gliding my body to a decaying state: the kids at school crying, the women at the pub growing younger, growing louder.

Can you hear the voices?

Can you hear the hard hum of broken souls?

They keep breaking the fine line I have between genius and insanity.

I've heard so many words, so many battle cries, but I have never heard of love, of pleasure. I've felt many things but I have never felt the sun filling up my blood with optimism.

Can you hear the voices?

They take a blade to my ear with a force of blunt opinions. I listen, trying to make it stop by trimming the edges of their words. I feel no more of what I've felt in all of the bottomless wishing wells that I've thrown my life into. 

I have never needed compassion because I've never seen it. I've never had the urge to step into the light because finding it would be an unreachable task. There is only a void in the soul of humanity.

I look up at the midnight sky with great madness. My eyes glaring at the shattered glass called stars up above and the swirling, cascading colors singing a hymn of hope. The galactic atmosphere is a gem.

But the voices never stop.

Why won't they stop?