Slope

I feel like I’m driving through a dark tunnel.

I’m driving through a dark tunnel – or “riding” might be the more accurate verb because I do not feel like I’m in control.

I feel like I’m riding through a dark tunnel, and I get glimpses of light here and there. I can’t tell whether it’s the artificial lights strewn atop the ceiling on both sides or the natural light at the so-called end of the tunnel. It doesn’t matter that I can’t tell: the invented lamps are half-broken, blinking at best, and provide no real benefit in me knowing if I’m traveling north, south, closer, farther. They do not give me any semblance of direction, and like me, they seem to serve no purpose. If anything, their fake and false and untrue light confuses me because I can’t tell if I’m almost out of this dark tunnel. When I see the flashes, the blinking on and off, the light illuminating an otherwise pitch-black inside and underground road, it draws me in again just to turn me around again. But without them, I’d be unable to see at all.

It’s supposed to be that when the light appears, I am saved, and when the light disappears, I don’t know where I’m going.

What direction am I heading?

I don’t know.

Did I ever know where I was going?

Not when the lights were off.

Not even when the lights were on.

Every year this dark tunnel seems to get longer, and wider, and although it’s straight, it develops more left and right turns every… single… year. I could do a 180, and I’d still have no idea where I’m driving. Where I’m riding. If I’m unable to discern left from right and top from bottom, then I’m unable to discern 0 from 180 from 360. But this does feel like the bottom. And each time I believe it is, I’m reminded I was wrong. My conviction about my life in this sense is not resolute – that my mental emotions have reached the deepest depths; I know they can go lower, yet I always without fail deceive myself to think they can’t, and then I’m surprised when they do, when they descend, when they drop. I wish I could do a lot of things in life always without fail. This is not one of them.

It almost sounds like a simple task. Almost. To tell if one is traveling in a straight line toward the end (the light at the end of the tunnel or the end overall?). One should be able to tell. But like a seasoned hiker lost in an unfrequented forest, I’m unable to discern left from right. And like a skydiver in free fall unable to track the sun, I’m unable to discern top from bottom.

This feels like bottom.

I am falling, I am spiraling from an unknown height to an undetermined floor. Ground. Bottom.

9.8m/s²

Hypothetically speaking.

Velocity.

Metaphorically speaking.

Vuh·laa·suh·tee.

Of course, if I did find the floor. Ground. Bottom. Inherently, it’d have to be determined. Accordingly, I know I have not hit them yet.

It doesn’t matter if the lights are artificial or natural because I’m so accustomed to seeing artificial ones I’ve almost forgotten what the natural ones look like. I’m trapped.

“I’m stuck. Does it get easier?”

I’m trapped, and although I don’t hold much faith that I will see and sustain real happiness, the brightness of it, again, I still hold some level of hope. I’m holding out not that the sun will once again make an appearance – I know others can feel its warm embrace of their skin and light upon their face; it is making appearances for others. I’m holding out that the sun will once again make its presence known to me, so that I can at least know there’s still a chance for me, whether I’m merely witnessing the sunlight from a far distance while uncomfortably stuck within the tunnel.

Notwithstanding, I can’t help but think that it doesn’t matter if the lights are artificial or natural because either way, they are fleeting at best. One flickers visibly, serving to guide me to nowhere except the inevitable end. The other flickers internally, giving me hope each time that I have not reached the inevitable end but rather the end of the tunnel, which is what keeps me from reaching the inevitable end.

I then ask, though, what’s the good of being reminded of the joy you no longer share with the world or the world no longer shares with you? The joy comes and goes in moments, indeed, but the coming is less often, the going is more often, and the moments are shorter.

And the joy really isn’t the issue. The problem is the tunnel is simultaneously becoming longer while seemingly getting shorter, still with no exit and a single escape. The tunnel’s ceiling gets lower, its sides grow closer, and while the bottom also gets lower – because it can’t get higher – the rate at which the ceiling gets lower outpaces the race to the bottom.

Soon I will be stuck between the six constraints of forward, backward, left, right, up, and down, and no light will be able to sneak in, even if just to mock me.

It’s been coming to this for a while. It’s been getting worse, and worse, and worse, and I’m waiting for the e to be replaced with a t.

The loneliness when I shouldn’t be lonely.

The unhappiness when I should be happy.

The addiction to anything to keep my mind off my self-hate.

The self-hate that derives from the addictions.

The vicious, endless cycle.

Endless until –

The understanding of the issues but incapability to fix them. Or maybe it’s the lack of dedication or desire to. What motivates you? Not thinking. Being numb. Being numb leads to not thinking which leads to not hating. This is what I desire and have grown dedicated to. But it’s a vicious, endless cycle, one that a person cannot live with forever. Endless, until –

What direction am I heading?

I don’t know.

I have a guess, and it isn’t good.