I hate nights alone
          So many thoughts
                   Never stopping
                            No sleep…
Thoughts tear through my head like a tempest, never even pausing for sleep.
My past stalks me like the black shadow of death; a shadow as thick as the everlasting night.
She has manifested herself inside skin and bones, deep within a weak and hollow body.
I walk around half dead, half alive, unaware of any truth or peace.
The truth only makes me hurt worse.
It’s a wonderful paradox, really,
That I can search so desperately for something that merely causes me pain.

As I sit alone tonight,
         I feel trapped in a moment.
                   Time moves neither fast nor slow…
Suddenly a force so strong and so surprising burst from within me and I wanted to scream!
My face grew red as I tried desperately to suffocate the terrifying voices inside of me.
The anger and frustration, the memories and regret, the loneliness and terror…
Everything began to surface and erupt.
Tears spilled like poison from my eyes, leaving my face splotchy and red.
I imagined a line dividing my present from my future, floating in space, waiting for me to cross.
But it seems I’m only capable of shuffling along the side of it.
The task seems insurmountable which made me cry harder.
I felt swallowed by pain; unable to speak and unable to breathe,
Longing for someone to hold me~ but there was no one there.
After a long while my cries ceased and the room was filled with a heavy silence
More drowning than even my own tears.
My palms were sweaty and I could feel my chin begin to quiver.
My breathing was sharp and my hands were shaking.
I wanted to write something, needed to write, something.
I picked up a pen and etched two words into my journal: “without hope”.

Without hope…
          darkness begins to choke me.
                    I feel completely powerless.
Fearful…
Fear has been stitched into my spine for so many years now.
          Fear of the past,
                   Fear of rejection,
                             Fear of failure,
                                       Fear of being alone,
                                                  Fear of feelings…
How do I face this fear? What am I supposed to do?

I sat there, still shaking, staring up at the dark sky,
I could not find a single star hovering,
And I took that as a sign that more darkness is yet to come.
As the moon hid behind the clouds…
         I continued to stare into space…
                   No star to wish upon…
                             No light to follow...
All is strapped in the shadows of night, where skeletons rise from the dead to moan at the world.

And she and I sit together in the darkness, my past and me, the only friend who has never left.