I Use a Book Bound in Human Skin to Suppress Ghosts and Gods

“I’ll only talk about myself, and I won’t hold anything back. All I want is a ‘revival card’ after I die, hahaha.” For over thirty years, I’ve stumbled through life in a daze, as if it were all a dream. Who am I, you ask? I’m like a rusted clockwork spring, mechanically winding tighter and making the hours tick away for others. The markers of a life filled with expectations have never truly measured my own breath. The taste of joy? It only floats in a cup, then slides down with the drink and turns into a bitter lump in my throat. Only when my vision blurs with wine do I dare let down my guard and allow the buried tears to break free for a moment, washing over this wilderness unknown to anyone. Beyond the window, all is silent. Only the person in the mirror can see where every bruise and scar came from.

I’ve never cried out that I was tired, nor searched for another shore. The weight of every stumble eventually falls back onto these weary shoulders, where I quietly crush it down and swallow it. Time pours away like sand in an hourglass, and youth has become dying embers on the far bank. Looking back along the dusty road, I can’t make out a single footprint that belongs to me. All I see is a forest of monuments piled high with countless “shoulds,” each one heavier than the last.

Halfway through life, my battered body feels like an empty valley. My soul has lost its way, and I don’t know at which sacrificial crossroads I left it behind. Though I have a thousand things to say, they all freeze into solid ice in my chest. Yet deep inside this shell, a spark of hope still survives, flickering faintly in the dark as if to remind me: the cage is invisible, but it isn’t completely sealed. There’s always a sliver of light, enough to glimpse the world beyond.