Atrophy

There's something heavy in this house.
Something huge, dense,
that hangs over the heads of everyone.
It is an oppressive silence,
and any words spoken
are merely sucked in,
and the silence reigns once again.
This same silence prevents happiness.
If someone smiles, if someone laughs,
it's only a matter of time before
the silence gets to them,
and reminds them what has transpired.
It doesn't matter if one person manages
to fight off the silence.
As long as another still carries it,
the disease continues,
and reinfects the person who fought it off.

I can't believe how bleak this place has become,
What used to be the home I loved,
has changed, now turning into something
          uncomfortable, unreassuring, accusing.
I don't want to be here.

I haven't been eating enough.
It takes hours before pain reminds me
that I should have already eaten something,
and I trudge into the kitchen,
looking around bleakly for something
that will at least help me survive.
I don't really care about much more than that.
Eating has lost its pleasure --
          its enjoyment
-- and has become a task:
drudgery that must be done
in order for everything else to happen.
Maybe it's just that I don't want things to happen
                    anymore.

I haven't been sleeping enough.
But what's to fear in that?
My worst nightmare already came true.
There's not much more left to befall me.
But nevertheless, I stay awake nights,
staring at the clock and sighing in sad relief
each time a minute passes by.
I don't want to go to bed.
Perhaps I'm afraid I'll dream up something worse,
and then that will happen, too.

I'm weaker than I used to be,
Fatigued by all that's happened,
Atrophied because few things seem worth doing
                    anymore.
I never leap to answer the phone anymore,
because nothing will really seem like good news.
Few things distract me long,
as reality seems to return to me all too quickly.
There are blank spaces everywhere,
where pictures used to be,
but taking them down didn't help.
The blank spaces remind me just as easily
as the pictures themselves would have.
I can't even look at myself in the mirror anymore.

I think I'm wasting away.
But does my knowing that it's happening
allow me to change it at all?