Machine Heart

She stares at the clock. Only 4pm.

How long is this day going to go on for?

Each second feels like an eternity.

4pm. It’s just a number indicating the middle of the day.

How many more are going to be like this?

She looks at people and sees only what she feels. She opens her mouth and silence pours out.

She can’t even look at her own reflection. She’s disgusted by herself.

Who would want to love her?

She knows she has a brain. She feels her heart beat against her caged chest.

For her, they are just machines that keep her alive.

Levers push and pull at tendons and muscles.

Cogs turn the internal factory doors.

Unconsciously automated.

She eats and drinks only to fuel the machine.

No flavour. No taste.

Organic matter decaying in the pit of her internal sewer.

Memories slow her. The machine stops for brief moments every hour.

Why is it so hard to look?

How is she to know what to do when there has been no direction to begin with?

She can’t smile. The muscles in her cheeks have long lost their memory.

Her days are all too familiar. She can only fantasise that tomorrow will be different.

She could sit for hours in the empty silence, filling the room with static from the electrical convulsions in her

head.

Her lonely little world.

Alone for 24 years.

This might never end.

When she is nothing, why would anyone want her?

Friends

Such an unfamiliar term. One she has never known.

If she were to disappear tomorrow, how long would it take anyone to notice?

If she can’t remember the beginning, who’s to say there ever was?

Maybe this is it. A constant battle to stay alive.

She needs someone to listen and understand.

When all she sees is her own misery, how can she possibly think that someone would want to?

How can she speak when she is voiceless?

She doesn’t belong anywhere. Nowhere feels safe.

She is uncomfortable in her shapeless skin.

Her mood lifts in lightning flashes. Excitement fades to emptiness.

Will she ever find happiness?

Will she ever feel love?