It sticks.
Like sticky caramel stuck to chubby fingers.
But there is no innocence in this.
For the caramel can be washed away. This sticks for life.

The flow of blood, manages to struggle up and through.
Attempting to make each crucial part survive.
This virus.  The reluctant virus.
Crawls and creeps alongside it. The shadow that haunts the house.
And it taints everything.
Making every action, consumed by the darkness.

It’s in the moment you realise, that it falls to pieces in your hands.
Like the sand that seeps through your fingers.
Trying desperately grasping to save as much as you can.
Opening your hand to find, tiny specs of sand.
Not the light gold you wish filled your hand.
Not how you planned it in your mind.
The world is against you on this day.

Days in the park, painting by numbers, even dinner nights out.
All attempt to cover what lies beneath the skin.
It works, for hours or so.
Until in the night, lying awake. It hits you.
The undiscovered hole in your heart; grows bigger.
Grows deeper.
Making the darkness thrive.

Lingering like a lost ghost, it’s yours to own.
It will get to know you; know you better than yourself.
Like part of the soul, it twists and turns like vines
Constricting, releasing, tensing, the whole of you.
Controlling you.
Becoming a part of you.
Taking over you.

The control will weaken, and the virus will fade.
In this moment, the battle will commence.
Tame the demon, holding the strings to your sanity.
Fight. Until the will has gone. Until you know.
Enough is enough.
But fight through the weeds, hack and hack away.
See the light, embrace the light.

It sticks.
But not to me.