INTERNAL VIOLENCE
Concrete Moving Underneath
“We both knew I was lying, and look at what I became. I know I mean it; I meant it all of it.”
The kettle’s been whistling for three days, or maybe it’s just my ears ringing. I held my breath yesterday until I saw colours that have no names, or perhaps I didn’t – can’t remember which happened first. There’s a person in the mirror, but we no longer talk. He stares back like he’s won something. I want to smash it, but then he’d smile. Violence tastes like pennies on your tongue – actual 1p coins, worthless metal. This is what you’ve become. I get a rush, mixed with nausea – I can’t tell the difference between being alive and this. Watching yourself make choices you know are wrong, but the wrongness is the only thing keeping you awake.
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My mother called last week or yesterday; I told her everything was fine. We both knew I was lying. The despair now has texture – rough concrete against your palms when you’re falling, though I’m not falling – just standing still. The concrete’s moving beneath me, or no, nothing’s moving. I wrote a list of reasons to keep going, but I forgot it immediately. Can’t remember if that even happened. There’s rhetoric in my head that sounds like justified violence. I can craft a logic around anything if I’m desperate enough. Man, I’m desperate enough. ‘Soulful’ means the pain comes from somewhere real – that you mean it when you’re destroying yourself. Yeah, I mean it. I get a rush, and I don’t know if it’s the drugs or if I’ve finally cracked something open in my head that’s meant to stay sealed. Either way, the light coming out is blinding – I stand in it like an idiot.
© Miguel Santiago, 2026. All rights reserved
