there are beasts inside me
with yellowed claws
and gaping, black pits
for mouths
who grin with sickly teeth
that are dripping
with the blood of
my past selves.

selves that they have carved
into shreds and chunks
until all that was left were black stumps,
ashes, and fragile bones
left to rot,
to poison the remaining
pure
pieces that remain.

and in the dark
i can feel them.

i can taste
the venom
pulsing through my translucent veins
as it slides through my system
effortlessly blighting my mind,
soul, and body
with twisted, dark thoughts
with loathing, weariness,
and with concepts that are rooted in truth.

they remind me that i have no place here,
that i do not deserve to waste
the precious oxygen
required to keep me alive,
nor am i worth contributing to
the depletion of natural resources
that will someday
run out.

a voice that once whispered seductively
from the outskirts of my dark,
tortured brain,
and trained me on ways to rip myself from life
with only a bottle of pills
or a blade,
now screams at me.

costantly reminding me that i am not good
enough
or that there is
nowhere
for me;
no matter how far i run,
my ghosts will follow.

as these ghosts are not the people
or this town
or even corpses that rot,
confined underground.

my ghosts are all the same,
and they are all
me.

i am the demon,
the murderer,
the ruination of my past,
my present
and, eventually,
my future.

i am the monster in the closet
beating against the doors
and pleading to be set free.
i am the behemoth who is suffocating,
forced to breathe in my own virulent air
and i am the demon
that i have battled,
the demon i have conquered
over and over again
if only for the time being.

the black war that
rages
inside of my mind
is the monster's fault
and by extension,
this battle -
all of these battles -
can only be solved by myself
and perhaps,
if i were a hero
i could win.

but i am just a mortal,
straining under the weight
of one fraction of
the world
and no mere mortal
has ever been
their own hero;
no mere mortal
will ever win
against
their shadow twin.