Dead or alive? It’s the kind of question that doesn’t wait for an answer—it just sits there in the dark, breathing.

The dead and the living haunt my dreams. 
Like a great theater of serenity or tragedy. 

Usually the dead bring peace, but the living…

…they arrive late, disheveled, 
still carrying the unfinished arguments, 
the half-spoken apologies, 
the promises they never kept 
because they were too busy being alive.

The dead sit quietly in the front row, 
their faces softened by time’s final edit, 
no more need to prove, to win, to explain. 
They simply watch. 
Sometimes they even smile— 
the small, knowing smile of someone 
who has already left the building.

But the living? 
They pace the aisles, 
whisper too loudly during the quiet scenes, 
interrupt the dead mid-sentence 
with fresh wounds still bleeding ink. 

They demand encores of old fights, 
replay scenes we both wish were cut, 
and when the curtain should fall 
they keep holding it up 
with trembling hands, 
begging for one more act 
that neither of us can finish.

In the dream the stage lights dim, 
the dead lean back, patient. 
The living keep talking. 

And I sit in the middle row, 
ticket stub long gone, 
wondering which side of the footlights 

The shades of dreams linger like smoke in the theater.
Do I really belong to this half-sleep?

Are we deadly alive?

We are, aren’t we?
Alive in the most murderous way:
hearts pumping poison we call blood,
lungs full of yesterday’s smoke and tomorrow’s excuses,
eyes wide open while we slowly strangle whatever light tries to get in.

We love so fiercely it leaves scars that never quite close.
We remember so hard the past keeps dying again every night.

We hope, and hope itself becomes a small, elegant weapon turned inward.

The dead at least have the decency to stay finished.

We? We keep moving, keep hurting, keep healing just enough to hurt better next time.

Deadly alive: the only species that mourns its own vitality while refusing to stop.

So yeah… we are.

Terribly, beautifully, terminally alive.
And the strangest part?
Most nights we still choose to wake up and do it again.

Source Note: Excerpts from Arcane-tech: Shadows in the Machine 👇

English Kindle: https://amzn.eu/d/9UImXHL 

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