FOREVER, YOURS // Matty Healy.

Maybe if you say it first.

Matty

My thoughts were consumed by the itching at the back of my head, not physically though. The internal itch that comes with a mild addiction to certain drugs. It was taking everything within me not to burst with emotions. All I wanted to do was drown myself in the things that made me think less about the reality around me. It's so bittersweet though, I should be over the moon right now. I'm living my dream. That's why I hate myself more for it.

"You look happy today." Alyssa said, looking over at me from the couch on the bus. I don't know how she could think that but maybe I just put up enough of a front that she's somehow convinced herself that I'm okay.

"I am." I lied. It hurt to lie to her, not that it's a big lie. And it wasn't a complete lie either. I wasn't specifically unhappy but neither was I overjoyed.

She looked back down at her phone and continued scrolling through whatever she was looking at, a smile was on her face and it hurt me even more to feel this way. I know I shouldn't rely on someone else's presence to stop me from the need to abuse drugs, it's not a healthy way to cope. It just gets so lonely trying to keep myself right these days.

If we were at home though, I wouldn't be feeling like this. I could do a few lines and be fine for ages, it wouldn't bother me. There would be no need for me to worry, it's just this setting caused me to take it to the next extreme. It's like when they say weed is a gateway drug but in this instance it's being on tour.

There's something so beautifully tragic about the feeling it gives me. When I'm on stage I feel invincible, like nothing can take me from that moment and drag me through the dirt. The second I walk off stage though, it hurts me to walk away. When you have hundreds of people interacting with you, looking at you for some form of safety for an hour it makes you feel like some form of God, maybe that's why I've become so frantically against the prospect of religion as I got older. Walking away from it and sitting in a room with your friends, your family or even just the strangers that work for your band becomes dull. Not in a bad way, it's just such a contrast.

Too many times have I left the stage and ended up alone for hours on end. That's when it gets dark. That's when I felt the need to self medicate in the worse ways imaginable. It leaves you feeling empty, like there is no one else in the world that can possibly fill that void. Mix it with adrenaline and alcohol, it's a recipe for disaster. Alas, I turn to drugs to fill that empty, vacant feeling. Something to distract me from the noise in my head.

That's why I don't consider myself an addict. I don't rely on it everyday of my life, or even for the mundane days alone in my flat. I only seem to feel that itch when I tour. It's a fucked up concept for me, to finally get the opportunity to show the world what I'm capable of but be hit with the burden of loneliness and depression whenever I get to perform.

I used to fill that void with girls, sex and any substance that would come my way until I hit a point of loneliness that the nameless faces didn't seem to feel the same anymore. In the beginning of our touring days I was a typical wanker that would sleep with girls in every city we stepped foot in. I almost craved it more than touring itself but it didn't work. The second they'd leave I'd be alone again and needed the drugs.

I had hoped that finding a girlfriend that actually wanted to be with me for who I am would change that. It did for awhile but it would fade away, like everything else. I just hope for my own sanity that Alyssa isn't someone that will disappear like the rest. I'm not so egotistical that I convince myself that I wasn't the issue in these relationships. I always was. And that's why it scared me how much I now seem to rely on her being here.

"What you thinking about?" Alyssa looked up again. How fucked up I really am but you have no fucking clue and I'm terrified you're going to find out and leave me like the rest of them do.