The dark terrifies me,
The quiet engulfs me,

Fictional phantoms fade into my vision as their hands claw through the gloom like a fog in the night.
I never know what shape they'll shift into, like a new opponent that I know I can’t fight.

Could it be a black figure with nothing on its face but a mouth,  eyes in the back of its throat,
hiding in my closet?
A creature with a twisted face contorted in agony,
waiting just outside my door?
Perhaps a four armed creature with 6 eyes, no nose, and a wicked grin,
to come crawling along my walls?
A young girl in white, presumed to be innocent, but only the presence of an insane smile upon her lips,
groaning from the corners of my room?
Or maybe, simply a ghost with no form, just a pair of wide eyes,*
watching me from my window?

It's on quiet nights like these,
(which are more common than you might think),
that I can hear every whisper the house makes,
every groan of the trees as they wave in the wind.
It’s on nights like these...
that I can feel my heart pumping and my blood rushing and I suddenly remember something that is deathly important.

That I'm alive…

Which reminds me that I'm afraid.
Almost like being alive is nothing but a dream, a terrible one that I've been waiting to wake up from.
But sadly, I cannot.
It’s on nights like these that I am reminded...
That the thought of living haunts me,
That the thought of growing up petrifies me,
I can't see my future self doing anything special,
Mostly for the fact that I can't imagine it.
I can't imagine myself doing anything.
I can't imagine myself living that long.

These thoughts burden me every time the sun goes down, a constant battle between the physical world and my mental hell.