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