My Shadow World

Today I open my eyes and know that today will be just like yesterday—just another day. Today could be tomorrow and morning could be night, as time progresses differently in my world. My world is the word of shadows, the world of the unforgotten and the silent; and time for me moves slow, stretching on and stretching any bit of sanity I have left; and time moves fast, blurring together while I’m left in the dust to analyze my unsuccessfulness of moving forward with the rest of my world. Today, when I open my eyes to my world I know that time is on fire, moving as fast as it can to combat the overwhelming amount of negativities.

Today is darker than normal. The sun doesn’t dare to peak through the black curtains of my world; so when I open my eyes and question whether they are closed, I am scared—the sun always tries to shine light on my world of darkness.

I’m shivering and shaking, the blankets of my bed unable to warm me. I’m being suffocated by the remnants of my negativity, the smoke that hovers like a thick net that I’ll never be able to escape. I’m blinking, begging for my eyes to see something, anything but the shadows. But the demons are already flowing, shambling, clomping, running away from the fire, towards me. I’m too meek to do anything but cower into a ball, hoping, wishing that someone would save me. But I’m all alone, and no one comes, no one cares, and the demons of the shadows know it. They’re on top of me, pushing me down into my hard bed. I’m squeezing my eyes shut so tight as to not see their ugly molten faces that blend in with the shadows that surround them.

I’m whimpering as I feel their talons dig and slice along my wrists, and I’m screaming and thrashing as their skin burns into mine. I’m begging them to shut up, to leave, to leave me alone, but their words trickle down their slimy tongues into my ear “you’re all alone”, “you are nothing more than the dirt of this world”, “you are nothing”, “no one will save you”, “you’re too worthless to save”, “you’d be better off dead”. Their words echo in my head, bouncing around and stabbing me, embedding themselves in my brain.

“I’m worthless,” I cry out, “I’d be better off dead!”

I’m heaving, the smoke tearing my lungs apart.

I’m bleeding, the demons artwork gleams at my wrists.

I’m thrashing, trying to throw the demons off me.

But it’s all too late. The smoke, the demons, the shadows, have finally won. I was too late, too weak to fight them off, and now they have seeped into me so far, that I can’t pull them out. Their inside of me. And I’m jumping out of my bed, slamming myself into walls, hitting my fists against my head, slicing my wrists even more, just trying to get them out of me. But I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. But I keep slashing at my wrists, I keep hoping that they’ll come out, I keep hoping that maybe the sun will finally come out.

But today, is no average day. Today, the shadow world had finally consumed me. Today, there was no hope. Today, there was only a permanent darkness that set in when my body turned to stone, when the blood dripping from my wrists was nothing but my life, seeping out of me so fast that I couldn’t even open my eyes.

Today, when I close my eyes, I’m sad that this is the way it had to end; if only the sun wouldn’t haven given up on me, then maybe I wouldn’t have given up on myself.