in a room full of people,
i stand there, sheathed in silence.
the dim glow of headlights flicker
with each passing car.
go on, she says.
take two steps forward,
and all of your worries
will dissipate in the wind.
seventeen years of struggling,
of nail-digging, blood-spattered fighting.
and for what? what am i fighting for?
nothing, she tells me.
these people with blank faces,
and blank hearts filled with blank intentions;
why do they stay? why do they crowd
around my hunched body, like animals
circling their prey?
look at their eyes, she says.
they're empty of emotion,
of sympathy,
of humanity.
look closer, she says.
look at the way they watch you,
a sliver of life clinging to the darkness.
look at yourself, she says.
look at the way your body has become
a mass of decay, look at how
your eyes have become as lifeless as theirs,
look at how you still long for the unobtainable.
look at your broken soul,
the same one that once blossomed
with the hope of happiness.
watch how it fights its way out of you.
i used to be able to silence her, to
lock her in a vault so deep in my mind
that i was sure she couldn't escape.
but here she is, real as ever,
clouding my thoughts with darkness,
erasing the good in my heart,
erasing the good in others.
and now i watch her, watching me,
with eyes black like midnight.
her claw-like fingers dig deep in my chest,
searching, scraping, scratching.
i've fought so hard, for so long.
why? why do i keep fighting?
her darkness seems so inviting.
her words pierce my last remaining light.
i see her truth. i see her.
i see, and i know.
she is me, and i am her.
