The demons choke her from the inside out
Slithering up her throat, leaving their slime behind to stain her
Her voice cracks as something inside her splinters, unable to be immediately salvaged
It floats, not away but around, offering itself to her as a wound, one festering with fear and vulnerability
She used to immediately try grab it, to force it back inside her, but the more force, the more disappointment
The more unintentional damage. So she stands as what she has left. As what she has become. And so
She stands shaken. Her body sighs in defeat, the damage done. She is so tired of standing
But she has to stand, otherwise her story ends. The splintering would stop, and instead, she would be shattered.
Unable to pick up the pieces of herself, as there would not be enough left inside to recognize
To look at those pieces and see the difference between her, and garbage, and at some point, unable to resist collecting it all as one.
So she would be destroyed. Lost. And not temporarily. Confused. And nothing. It would be the end.
So she tries to hold herself together, shaking, with the stains getting deeper, more painful, personal, and harder to remove with time
But she still stands. Exhausted. As tall as she can, even if hobbled. Because of the singular chance
The chance to see. The chance to squint until she finds a break in the blackness
And that. That is and will be her temporary prize- a clear light in the dark, flickering
She enjoys it as much as she can, until her enjoyment gets tickled by fear and she looks away, woozy
Sometimes she wants to *****, everything, the reminder of all that is not permanent. All that flickering. Is horrifying.
And she is just so tired. All the time. She is tired of it just, never being enough. The reminder that there will always be stains, seeping.
And for this, sometimes she regrets looking for the light
Because when the light flickers, the black, white and grey flashing so quickly, she feels sick
As she catches clear glimpses of the damage and those stains brought about by stumbling through that darkness for far too long.
Her fault. Not. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore. All she knows is that it isn’t over.
And so she starts to scrub. The blood and bile mixing together to create something disgustingly human
Terrifyingly human. As it grabs her, again and again, and forces her to watch
As it destroys everything around her proving that
Nothing can be taken for granted, anymore
And when its drained her, when she is left to scrape the remnants of what it hasn’t yet taken
She breaks.
Because it is only after, when she is forced to look at all those stains
When she is forced to scrub them until they are red and raw
That she realizes she is a poem with so much left to be written