He stared up at the pitch black ceiling of his room, watching his tired, dreary thoughts drift by like clouds on a long ago summer day. He counted them, stacking them against each other, each one as meaningless and empty as the last. Taking one and bringing it to the forefront of his mind, he pretended to focus on it, his eyes glazing over as they flitted across the ethereal page, seeing, but not comprehending. What did it matter, anyway? It’s not as if anyone was around to hear.

Though…that was the problem, too. There wasn’t anyone around. The silence sat heavy on his chest, as if to suffocate him, pushing down on his already oppressed heart, another silent drop of soul salted water staining his pillow. It would soon disappear too, as everything else…not that it had mattered in the first place.

Combatting the feeling of hopelessness on his own had already proven meaningless- the more he looked for something to warm his heart, effigies of love or lust only cooled his heart or stabbed at his mind, carving away at his fragile psyche. No art could banish the pain from his soul, no captured beauty smiling upon him could make him feel as if he was truly wanted.

Though…it’s not like others helped either. Of course, it’s not that nobody wanted to help him. It’s that he couldn’t ask for help. How could he, when all those around him were going through far worse, or whose needs were far easier to understand? How could he focus on his own wants, when he could lift others, to support them in their darker times? How could he express his wants, his needs, when his heart told him that they would never know how to fulfill them, or that they would be scared off by his desires, or that requesting something of that nature would only impose? It was impossible.

He rolled onto his side, picking up his collar, staring at his name engraved in the front. Just another effigy, as meaningless as the rest. One does not buy roses for themselves and say they are loved, nor does one write a letter to themselves and say they are thought of. A collar is not a sign of ownership without someone to put it on, nor a neko a pet without someone to own them.

He sighed, shutting his eyes, another drop of his heart melting into the pillow beneath him. He set the collar down, curling up in his blanket, wrapping his arms around himself and squeezing his sides tightly.

…A forged embrace is better than none, at least.