One of my fears is that I am crazy.
Sometimes I will be chatting with a friend in the middle of the city, a close friend from school or a girl that I'm seeing, and all of a sudden a wave of anxiety will sweep through me. I'll catch the eye of a stranger, feel a pang of fear, sense something..... My friend could still be chattering away in the background but I lose focus and feel my heart pump through the skin of my slightly sweaty palms as their voice is drowned by the blood rushing through my ears.
The thing is; I wonder if my friend is real.
Am I just standing here by myself, laughing and joking around in the thick of the CBD, sharing memories and playing games with a phantom? I notice people looking at me with a sheen of awkwardness, yet my friend keeps talking to me as though everything was completely normal. I kid you not, I often look into the nearest window or shiny metallic surface, telling myself that even my vivid imagination could not create the perfect reflection of a ghost.
What do they see? What do they hear? These people we pass - swearing at shop fronts and arguing with the sky. Is that me, so deluded that I have created a fantasy to whisk myself away from the life of a transient? Am I locked in a perfect cage, the perfect prison? So perfect I really think I'm free.
Please. Please be real.
