Morphine Ghost

Sometimes I miss the haze. I know everyone says I should hate what they did to me in those hospitals, but there are days when I would give anything to feel that empty again. They drowned my thoughts in chemicals until every hour melted into the next. I could barely remember my own name. The walls looked soft. Time stopped meaning anything. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't afraid every second either. Fear needs a sharp mind to survive, and they filed mine down until there was nothing left for it to cling to.

Now every sound is too loud, every shadow too deep, every silence full of someone breathing where no one should be. Mother says I only remember the drugs because I remember them through loneliness, but she doesn't understand. I don't want to disappear. I just want the noise to stop for a little while. I want my thoughts wrapped in that thick cotton again, where everything felt distant and slow, and even she seemed farther away, as though I were sinking beneath dark water while she watched helplessly from the shore.