the sentence comes and goes freely now, ingrained in my brain. i walk and toy with the idea. i imagine it taking shape and hovering over me like a shadow i can’t shed.
the more you have, the more you have.
i see it like it’s right in front of me, my laptop filled with countless drafts, hours worth of footage i’m too afraid to touch, thousands words and worlds and stories asking to be shared.
the more you have, the more you have.
my phone, stream of endless opportunities i’d be a fool not to consider my own, boiling promise of that one more thing, just one more thing. i stare at the screen and don’t dare to let my eyes slip for even the briefest of seconds, careful not to miss anything i might not have thought myself to need.
the more you have, the more you have.
my five towels just in case i run out, fifteen pens i’ll never ever use, creams and serums, magazines and headphones, and clothes, and shoes, and vases, and a notebook, and one more.
the more you have, the more you have.
a determination rises in me, hand to hand with fear, as i list out all the things to do, as if something terrible would happen if i didn’t, as if the world would collapse the second i forgot what the third and fourth thing was.
the more you have, the more you have.
the list of one last things is always never-ending, every week promising to be this last one, and i push forward, always, because one of them has to be, right?
the more you have, the more you have, i recite as something ominous tries to shift in me, but i won’t let it. an idea that i could be something less and still live, that i’m more than the sum of my ambitions.
the more you have, the more you have.
i fight and push it down, nails digging deep in flesh, relentless. i suffocate it with my bare hands, up until familiar buzzing fills my head again, finally, up until the only thing more horrifying is the silence that comes, always, when it’s gone.