- scrolling through my socials antisocial
seeing lots of grey places, blank faces, empty spaces,
light used to subdue shadows into submission,
generously applied, but enough to allow the contour of a valley
or a hammock below the eye:
a beauty that cannot be seen by the holder.

To numb is unwrapping layers and finding no core,
to sink down into an ocean, looking up through warped glass,
further down you go, until your body touches what the mind can't feel:
the cold holds your hands, working its way to your arms,
stretching from your feet to your knees.
Squeeze, release - don't think about it
until your heart caves in to the unfeeling.

But numb is a drug not a medicine,
dosage increased to each new injury.
You try to drain the anaesthetic sea
by poking holes to peak out of.
A fight to be on the surface
to perceive what the others see.
To discover there is nothing outside ourselves.
Only padding paws and a search for dry land.

© Eva Irvine