It starts under my skin; a dull itching that I think nothing of. It's only half there and if I ignore it, surely it'll go away. But it doesn't. It builds and before long, it's unbearable. It's a burning sensation, seering my skin until I can't take it anymore. I think I can deal with it; hang on for just a little longer and then surely it'll disappear as quickly as it came. But it's a disease. And it only ever spreads. It'll find it's way to my lungs and there'll be moments where I can't breathe and death is within reach. I'll claw at my throat, desperate to hear my voice to assure me that I'm still alive and this isn't some twisted nightmare. But I won't wake up. Because this is my reality. And it only gets worse. There's no cure. I'm not going to get better. What I'm feeling now is only the beginning. There is no uphill. There's only down. And there is no bottom. I'll be falling forever and no matter how many times I try to grab ahold of something and stop my sick plummeting, I won't be able to hold on long enough to pull myself up. It's going to consume me. It's going to tear me away from the people who 'loved' me. It's going to ruin my life. And the most I can do is sit back and watch it, praying that soon I won't be breathing anymore. It's a disturbing vacancy inside my soul that makes me question my existence. Do I really have to be alive?
Oh but wait; it gets worse. Right now, it only hurts from the inside. I can feel it ripping at me as if something's living in my chest, trying to tear it's way out. It's going to start hurting on the outside. Because I'm going to try and help the monster inside me. I'm going to try and get it out. I'm going to break my own skin in hopes of releasing the demon that's consuming every part of me. But no matter how many times I cut myself open and try to bleed it out, it'll hold on. Because it likes my agony. It feeds off my pain. And it mocks the tears that are streaming down my face because it knows I can't get rid of it. It knows it controls me. Soon enough, it'll take control of my sight. Everything I thought was beautiful, just won't be. My perspective will be dulled and never again will I see the colours that I once took for granted. Life in black and white will be all I'll ever know. I'll hold onto the memory of the once lively world I thought I knew. But even then, that'll slip away and any beauty I saw in anything will be torn from my mind as if it was never there in the first place. The flowers will die. The animals will be killed. And there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'm helpless and so utterly useless. And I spend my time thinking up ways on how I'm going to destroy the thing torturing me. But I can't. I never will be able to. It's always going to be there; in the scars on my body; in the smile that I wear that doesn't quite meet my eyes; in the dark colours that I find so comforting now. It's going to follow me. I can run away from it all I like. But it's part of me. And I'm only going to be running from myself. And everyone knows that that's pointless.
So it's taken over my feelings. It's taken over my vision. And then it'll start to slowly devour everything I hear. The kind words that spill out of my 'friends' mouths will be known to me as lies. Anything good that is said about me will be regarded as untrue. Because how can anything be good about me when I'm being controlled by such an ugly, destructive monster? How can what they say be true when I'm nothing but a puppet? It can't be. They're lying to me. Everyone's lying to me. At least I cannot lie to myself. I'll always know what I am. Even if they don't. My sense of feeling has turned into a painful stabbing. My vision has clouded into a bleak realisation of what the world actually is. All I hear is nagging taunts as the monster inside me eggs me on; encourages me to destroy myself. And while all of this is going on, I have two options of escape.
1; I may end it all. I may stop the pain, the torture, the insanity altogether. I may kill the monster inside me. And kill everything else about my life as well.
2; I can listen to music. The notes, the melodies, the rhythm is all strong enough to lull my monster to sleep, if only in three minute intervals. The lyrics are like a lullaby and the voices of the band members acts as a tranquilizer. I can lose myself in it. I can let my monster out in it. While everything else about me seems to be failing, music can push through all of it. It'll reach my ears and travel down into my chest where it will put my demons to sleep. It will take away the excruciating pain. It will heal me for a while. It will make things bearable. It will be my everything. It will act as a numbing drug, eager to help me out of the vacant hole I've fallen into. Eager to release me from that cage I'm trapped inside. Eager to save my life.
And at the end of the road, when I look back on the struggle that my life had become, I will realise one thing and one thing only. The monster was and always will be me. And for it to die, I would have to too.
