i lie in futility

I lie in the welter of my emotions, listening to the steel riffs of half familiar rock songs vibrate air molecules on the way to my brain. I lie on a bed with socks on, dressed in the clothes I went out in, looking at my ceiling and the interplay of light and shadow. I lie here waiting for life to come and kiss me bye or kick me in the ass or even, dare I hope, smile sweetly and make me drunk with giddy happiness for 'koncham' joie de vivre. I lie on my back through it all, imprisoned more surely than any raving loon, held down by a sense of futility, of a world getting away from me, of sand running through my hands. I lie until it is time to get up again and go look at the bright sunlight, at people playing at life, at color and texture and feeling and right now it is all a chore. I lie surrounded by the broken pieces of my failed aspirations and smile at neurosis. I wonder if other people are as comfortable with their incipient madness, with the stranger whose lunatic gaze peeps out from their soul.