I'm sitting in my room. It's cold and my skin is dirty with a long days rubbings of dust and hate.
I'm alone. Mybedside light is softly glowing, but the fading light can't keep the darkness out of my thoughts, and doesn't reach the far corners of my room either.
Lyrics are pounding in my ears and I'm trying to wash away all the words filled with loathe and anger from them because today they seemed to follow and find me wherever I went. The next song that tears at me is the one song I was hoping to avoid, my trigger song.
I hear it start with that crashing sound. Those drums and guitar that play the melody of my past. My mind flashes and my breath catches in my throat.
"Really Life? Have I not suffered enough today already?", I angrily think to myself. Fuck. I can feel it. It's creeping up on me, stalking me. Waiting for just the right moment to pounce. As I'm about to run, it jumps and goes straight for the jugular.
I'm both the predator and the prey.
My heart races, my hands clench into white fists. My skin close to tearing as it stretches over my bare knuckles. I shut my eyes tightly and wish it away. I push and struggle against it with everything inside me.
"Not tonight!" ... I wish those words had actually come out, but they are trapped, pinned in my throat as a claw pierces my flesh and rips at the soft tender skin that's keeping my pulse intact.
I'm bleeding out, gasping for air. Suffocating on my own life force as it's desperately trying to keep me alive. Oh the irony. My life is slowly killing me.
There are signs of a struggle and they are painted across her skin. The darkness smiles at her from the darkest corners of her mind and the monsters hide in the shadows of her bedroom. She can't catch her breath and the more she runs, chasing as fast as she can, the more it swiftly eludes her grip. Her hands are shaking with sobs of pain as the broken pieces of her heart stab at her from the inside.
Her pillow is soaked, and it's not tears that are falling. She pushes herself up in an attempt to get out of here. A hot shower. Yes! That's it. But she only finds her dinner being splattered across the drowning floor, a burning sensation from the flame like water kissing her skin. There is no relief but at least she can breathe. At least for now, she can breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
As steady as a heartbeat she takes in as much oxygen as her tar stained lungs will allow, it's a relief to find she's still capable of staying alive.
It's a short trip back to the den of darkness and nightmares and she find no peace in the restless slumber that comes slowly and painfully to her tired mind. Her swollen eyes are shut and her body is numb but there's no peace in a place promised to be her own mind, because when you're running from yourself, there's no where to hide.
And tomorrow, she knows, it will all start over again.
