I remember a child walking in the rain,
Under an umbrella that hid his face
He wondered how much of that cold
Should anyone have to take

When I go outside, it always rains
All the buildings are painted grey
Just standing up is so hard in these shoes
My lungs get tired quickly after such days

The din of a storm comes through my earbuds
So many years of tuning out, wanting to escape
To a realm without endless talking,
Phones ringing, texts coming in,
Countless stories of faceless people
Leaving their footsteps on the streets,
A faded memory from another country
That might be at the bottom of an ocean,
Or under this dead-end lane

Many bodies wrapped in fabric
To cover the cracked shells
Don’t notice me, don’t ask me to talk
You don’t know what’s going on
If you knew, you wouldn’t dare
I breathe without thoughts,
I spew words without music
No one speaks where I live
What I scream, no one hears
There’s just a hollow space
Between two walls of flesh

Sleeping, eating, pissing, shitting,
Walking, sitting, working, worrying
I check boxes, I live in autopilot
Everything is too hard, it will never change
I wish for the minutes to go down the drain

In that cold, I dream of lying face up,
Hearing a storm through my earbuds
Rain hitting stones, outside and inside
In that dark, I see stars and white light
Of infinite worlds being born in dust
I wait for air and water to burst forth
To fill the space with real things,
A sun to rise by itself each day,
Where a dark void used to be

At night I close my eyes for the last time
In the morning I wake up to start again

Everyone I’ve loved
Was born in my head
I want to be there
In the made-up space

‘The Made-up Space’ by Jon Ureña