I  have a pink post-it on my cheap Michael’s cork bulletin board. A post-it with “Goal Getter” plastered on the top, I find it funny. There are no “goals” written on it, no reminder, just my one-time passwords for my numerous accounts in case I lose my phone which has the authenticator app for those accounts. I have another pink “Goal Getter” post-it, it listed the roles and rules that different chess pieces have. I wrote that down during a time where I wanted to play “5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel” and be good at it. But like my password “Goal Getter” post-it, it wasn’t a goal that I’ve reached, but a forgotten dream. On the right side of the bulletin board I have a couple of bird feathers that belonged to two separate birds pinned to the board. Those who left me too soon, those that I was not prepared to lose. But here I sit, facing my $2000 white Alienware m15 R3 laptop, waiting for an eureka moment to write my next piece. Yet, as I sit here waiting all I can think about is how hallow I’m feeling, like a void wearing a fleshy suit.

I sit in my living room, with no space of my own to call my own. A 6-foot real Christmas tree standing all nice and chunky behind me, a time of joy and happiness. I have two 96-inch bird rope like perches hanging across my roof for my birds, one of them is groom themselves on that perch but I’m not sure who it is since I have not turned around to see who it is. It’s cold also, in this apartment. My mom doesn’t let me turn on the heat since they “apparently” turn on themselves. So here I am sitting in front of my computer with my bulletin board behind it, living like a void in a fleshy suit.

But this type of existence is reoccurring, a routine I developed for my everyday. I wake up, feed my animal babies, and living out the rest of the day living like a cold void in a fleshy suit. Facing the consequences of these actions, even so, I can’t bare to move from the bounds my couch holds. But as I turn my head towards my bulletin board, I see my “Goal Getter” post-its and I laugh.

“I was once a child reaching for the stars, but now I’m but a cold void living in a fleshy suit”.