Disease & Void

Disease & Void
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My dear, my adore
let me update you on the feelings under my skin,
I can stir the relapsing chronic passion
the infection you gifted me
that's coming back like a pestering friend

down in a hole leading to an exit into the void
lay on me a sheet or two of poems I wrote,
your photo is requesting my trust again
crawling with memories of a walk with you in the past
we walked through the valley of shadow of death
I had no fear but of you leading me astray again
from finding a way into you

well, It's a troubled time when my useless spirit is turned on
not any closer than before, not far from your bed either,
every filtered moment has a phase obstructing my judgment
marking the final screenshots of my stalled day

everything is still the same  
except for that sparkle in your eyes  
my infatuation with your potent smile   
curls into a fetal stance of what's coming next

behind these feelings
comes the hummings of the kabbala spells in the breakup  
a mutiny converging on me like a rabid disease
isolating me from the world, I used to know

it shifts into different levels of optional exiles & suicides
but they all float in your orbit.
 
I watch as you romance your pick of men, except me,
I'm wrapped in my decaying skin,
waiting for the expiration date to take effect;

There is so much to talk about before I go
I want to say. I’m not a poet
I just happen to adore you
I didn't mean to manifest your ego.
Details of my blunders are in the rear-view mirror with my disease.
 
I find things I touch can’t feel me  
words I say won’t echo too far  
images I dreamt won’t stabilize
visions I imagine won’t fly high enough  
everything I do doesn’t mean anything  
but I’m feeling something out of the ordinary  

the final chapter is so much clearer in the rear-view mirror
with my disease escorting me down into the void

I’m feeling emptiness;
I’m feeling emptiness;
and true feelings; this is  
to know what it’s like to be absolutely nothing
but manifesting three into one
myself with my two companions
the disease you gave me
and the void you put me in.
=
lyrics & vocals by azdi404
music credit: Illegal prod. by Antidote Beats
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“Disease & Void” by azdi404 is a haunting, confessional elegy—a descent into emotional illness, spiritual estrangement, and the collapse of identity after love. The poem stands at the intersection of metaphysical lament and postmodern self-analysis, fusing the language of medicine, mysticism, and decay into a single, feverish monologue. It is perhaps the most devastating and introspective of your series so far—a culmination of themes developed in “What I See,” “Holes in Our Passion,” and “New Religion.”

Let’s examine the piece through its themes, structure, and symbolic language.

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I. Thematic Overview

1. Love as Illness, Affection as Contagion

The poem’s central conceit is immediately introduced: love as a disease, an incurable, relapsing condition.

“Let me update my diagnoses to you, on the feelings under my skin
I can stir the relapsing chronic passion, the infection you gifted me”

The speaker medicalizes emotion, suggesting that love is not an awakening but an infection—an unwanted biological takeover. This language of pathology (“diagnoses,” “infection,” “chronic passion”) turns intimacy into affliction. The beloved is both the cause and the cure, simultaneously adored and resented.

This motif echoes Sylvia Plath’s “Fever 103°” and The Cure’s “Disintegration”—both works where love becomes an ailment that consumes identity.

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2. Void as Aftermath

The “void” in the title represents both emotional numbness and metaphysical absence—the empty space left behind when love’s infection burns itself out. The speaker isn’t just abandoned; they’ve been hollowed out:

“I find things I touch can’t feel me
Words I say won’t echo too far”

These lines express dissociation—the collapse of meaning and sensory connection. The self, deprived of reciprocal love, dissolves into abstraction. The phrase “down into the void” carries existential finality, yet the speaker narrates the descent with calm lucidity—suggesting acceptance of oblivion as the only remaining form of peace.

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3. Memory and Regression

The poem continually replays scenes of the past, as though looping through trauma:

“Your photo is requesting my trust again
Crawling with memories of a walk with you in the past
We walked through the valley of shadow of death”

This biblical echo (Psalm 23) is subverted: instead of divine protection, the “fear” comes from the beloved herself, “leading me astray again.” The “valley of death” becomes an allegory for emotional dependency and relapse—the speaker follows the beloved not toward salvation, but toward oblivion.

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4. Isolation and Decay

The later stanzas dwell in physical and emotional ruin:

“I'm wrapped in my decaying skin
Waiting for the expiration date to take effect”

This bodily imagery intensifies the disease motif, but also evokes existential rot—spiritual putrefaction. The self is still alive, yet already decomposing under the weight of memory. This recalls T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men—“We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men”—where identity erodes into inert form.

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II. Symbolism and Imagery

1. Medical and Diagnostic Language

The poem frames love as pathology—echoing medical discourse but with emotional subtext. The speaker’s “diagnosis” is not clinical but existential. The “infection you gifted me” becomes symbolic of emotional dependency: passion as contagion.

2. The Rear-View Mirror

“The final chapter is so much clearer in the rear-view mirror”

This recurring image serves as a metaphor for retrospective clarity—only through hindsight can the speaker comprehend the relationship’s devastation. The mirror’s backward gaze also signifies entrapment in memory—movement without progress, awareness without healing.

3. Kabbalistic and Mystical References

“Comes the humming's of the kabbala spells in the breakup”

This is a fascinating intertextual moment: Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism, deals with divine emanation, fragmentation, and reunion. Here, it symbolizes the spiritual dismemberment of love—a “breakup” not only of relationship but of the self’s sacred unity. The “spells” hum like ritual incantations, transforming heartbreak into a metaphysical event.

4. Cosmic and Biblical Inflections

The references to “the valley of shadow of death,” “kabbala spells,” and “optional exiles & suicides” elevate the personal to the mythic. The speaker’s pain becomes universalized—a reflection of humanity’s perpetual exile from wholeness.

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III. Structure and Tone

The poem unfolds as a monologue in descent—a gradual unraveling of coherence that mirrors the psychological breakdown it describes. The tone shifts from ironic detachment (“Let me update my diagnoses”) to confession (“I just happen to adore you”) and finally to transcendental resignation (“To know what it’s like to be absolutely nothing”).

The rhythm is deliberately disjointed, as though written in stages of relapse—lucid one moment, feverish the next. This fragmentation enacts the instability of the diseased psyche the poem portrays.

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IV. Existential and Metaphysical Undercurrents

The final section transcends romantic despair and enters existential territory:

“To know what it’s like to be absolutely nothing
But manifesting three into one
Myself with my two companions
The disease you gave me
And the void you put me in”

This triadic image (“three into one”) is deeply symbolic—it mirrors a dark trinity:

• Self (the sufferer),

• Disease (love as corruption),

• Void (absence as divinity).

It recalls both Christian Trinitarian imagery and Gnostic mysticism, where divine unity is fractured through suffering and experience. The speaker thus becomes both prophet and patient—one who transforms agony into insight.

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V. Comparative Context

Compared with earlier works:

• “What I See” was about epiphany through creation;

• “Holes in Our Passion” dissected romantic disillusionment;

• “Disease & Void” completes the cycle—it is the aftermath, a self-autopsy of the artist after love’s ruin.

The diction has also evolved: from lyrical mysticism to stark clinical realism. The voice here is stripped bare, oscillating between intellectual self-diagnosis and raw confession.

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VI. Closing Interpretation

“Disease & Void” is not simply a love lament—it is an existential diagnosis of being infected by memory. The poem traces the aftermath of love’s infection: how passion, once sacred, mutates into self-erasure. Its beauty lies in its refusal of redemption; the speaker finds authenticity in emptiness itself.

By the end, the poem affirms nothingness as truth:

“I’m feeling emptiness; I’m feeling emptiness
And true feelings they are.”

This paradox—emptiness as emotional truth—marks the poem’s philosophical depth. Love leaves disease, disease leaves void, and void becomes the final, honest companion.

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Would you like me to expand on the symbolic trinity at the end (self, disease, void) and its relationship to mystical or existential traditions like Gnosticism or Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus? That would illuminate the philosophical dimensions underlying this poem’s emotional despair.