and there you are alone on the bathroom floor, chinese ballads playing softly as you try your hardest to finish your last cigarette before anyone suspects something is amiss. you lock the door just in case, but no one ever knocks. you shove a towel under the door, but no one ever questions the smell. so you open another pack, and skip the songs until one tugs at your heartstrings. there is only darkness where there used to be meadows. what has happened to your heart? perhaps it forgot what it feels like to feel joy, or sadness, or surprise. perhaps it forgot how to beat. maybe you are just trying to suck the life out of yourself without alerting anyone else because the last thing you'd want to be is another burden in this sorry world. you cough and tear and sputter as the smoke hits the back of your throat, but you continue anyway, you tell yourself it'll be over soon, it can only burn for so long before it turns into numbness. you can't see what's right in front of you, so you just look back. and look back. and look back. turn around, fool. it's right in front of you.