He eats ladybugs.

They're round and crunchy in his mouth. The mush is cold and burning, but he swallows it anyway regardless of the repulsion he feels. He swallows again and looks at the remaining moving red dots in his hands; they're full of ladybugs.

This is what duty tastes like, the dirty flowers tell him. You hate it, don't you? That horrible taste, that awful sensation. What a good boy you are, doing what you hate just because you have to.

He doesn't listen, because he knows that the flowers might be right. Or they might be wrong. He doesn't know which but he knows that he shouldn't listen. Listening to malice is a mistake, and mistakes are hands that could pull him down. Mistakes can trip him, can fool him into failing, can make a wrong man out of him.

So he eats ladybugs and says nothing.

He vomits butterflies.

Their wings fill his throat, almost choking him. He opens his mouth and they fly out. He tries to breathe through his nose but stray ladybugs crawl out from there; not everything done has merit. He still doesn't regret doing his duty, because duty is what makes a man, he thinks. The dirty flowers laugh and clap their green hands.

A fool! they cry, voices like silver and sugar. A fool you are, taking a jest and making it a job.

He doesn't listen to flowers, because what would flowers know about words? He gave his word, a promise, which turned a dare into duty. He can feel ladybugs inside him, butterflies flying through him. He screams and squirms at the sensations within his body, so painful, so revolting. Duty is heavy, duty is disgusting. He doesn't want it, but what's a man not worth his word? Nothing! Nothing but a flickering illusion; quicksand beneath your feet and forked tongue behind perfect teeth.

He knows that there's a difference between blue and yellow. He knows there's a difference between ordering and obeying. It's the same difference that pulls I must do something six steps above something must be done.

So he eats ladybugs and vomits butterflies.

Because that's what heroes do.

I'm a hero, I'm your hope,
I break my bones so you can cope.
I fix what's wrong, do what's right.
No rest for the wicked, no end to the fight.

The dog's barking outside. Or maybe it's inside. Actually, it could be inside your head, that noise. At this point you don't really know or care. The contact lenses in your eyes are making them itch and had you not been this lazy right now, you would have moved to take them off.

Days like these, all you want to do is to be still and gather the energy you should have. You want to get it back from the world that's sucking it away, from the obligations and duties that reach forward, stripping you of every coin, skin falling down in patches as well. What do they leave you with? A half-empty bottle of coke and a screwdriver? The clock is racing every breath you take and you're growing older, doing nothing, being nothing.

There's a yellow guitar on your bed and you'd like nothing more than to see it broken. But you won't do that. You won't even sell it to get its weight worth of cash from a naive upstart at ebay, opting instead to look at it every now and then and think about what you should do. Maybe it signifies uselessness. Or maybe it's just a manisfestation of bad taste.

"You should make peace with yourself," someone said, and you can't remember their face or voice or where you met them, but you remember their words and the half-eaten pear they gave you. You threw it away.

You understand the concept of peace but you do not know how to achieve it. Serenity is a word, but confusion is your world, and you don't know how to apply peace on you and live it. If it was a cloak, it'd be the sort you wouldn't be able to wear without ripping it. But do you care? You would, but there's just too much on your empty plate right now.

There are voices in your head.

There are screams that won't ever be heard, buried deep inside you. It's not madness, it's anger. You have never considered yourself mad, as much as just... tired. Tired enough to prefer ending a life over starting it. Tired enough for you to dream of dragging your kicking, screaming problems into the cellar and letting them rot there. Tired enough to close your eyes and feign ignorance while in truth you can see more than others think you do.

But ignorance is your excuse for not caring. When you look at someone who's hurting, you see them with eyes that show nothing but boredom, because you're too tired to care. Sometimes you think that if it was you who was dying, you wouldn't bother to scream for help.

So you paint a portrait of serenity with your words, carry it like a shield and walk forward trying to believe that nothing will touch you. Nothing will hurt you. Nothing will rebut your sense of reality, not even reality itself.

This is Apathy, dressed up as Serenity, dancing with Confusion while Exhaustion wraps itself around you.

Together we drown.