“Thank you,” you say, your min­ion’s smile ever so broad. Your own smile, your own grat­i­tude, all so fake and so far away.

Never do you mean the thank-yous, never do you feel them. Noth­ing reaches into your heart, not from the world out­side; you and it are al­ways far apart.

You see, but you can­not feel. Those who should be your clos­est friends; even as they stand next to you, they’re oh so far away. Even as you share hugs, they re­main parted from your heart by an ocean larger than any found on Earth.

You are alone.

You have stooges. You have min­ions. You have a mother you’ll not see, and a fa­ther who won’t see you.

But in the end, all you re­ally have is your­self.

And then, you re­al­ize, you don’t even have that.

You are alone.

You do it to your­self, but you can­not stop. You put up these walls that you can­not tear down. They sur­round you. You’re alone, you’re boxed in, you can­not go any­where for there is nowhere to go, not when you’re alone, not when you’re here, not when you’re where you al­ways are, locked in­side your tiny box.

You can’t feel a thing. Every­thing’s from miles away. Things that should bother you pass be­neath your no­tice. Those few that get through stir you into the depths of fury–an im­po­tent fury that fer­ments with you in­side your lit­tle cage, fer­mets un­til the dam bursts in a bril­liant ex­plo­sion that, just as quickly, van­ishes.

You do it to your­self, but you don’t mean to, you don’t want to. You want to tear down the walls; you want to open up; you want to be free.

In the real world your power is con­sid­er­able. You seek it–you seek it ar­dently–but it is en­tirely use­less, for you do not live in the real world, and as much power as you may at­tain there, you will still live–you will al­ways live–pow­er­less, in­side your box.

There’s no-one you can share any­thing with, not even your­self. You can’t be­lieve how you, your­self, feel. You’re not sup­posed to feel this way; you should be dif­fer­ent; things should be dif­fer­ent; but they aren’t.

You’ve locked it all away, and now, even you can­not find it.

You’ve locked your­self into your lit­tle box, but you’re not even there; you tore your­self piece from piece, each into its own box, each with its own key, and then, each key, you threw away.

You have lost your­self.

“Thank you,” you say, but you don’t know what you mean.

You feel noth­ing.

You are alone.