Dark

dark

Dark, dark, dark, tiptoeing into my nails. Underneath my lashes. Right into my skull. Left, up my shoulders.

Blinds drawn. Drapes shut. An underfed ray of light that makes my eyes bleed. I could see the blood dripping down the wrinkles on my face, melting with the warmth of the brown underneath my eyes.

Awake, and I am deafened by the sound of conches. Then I realise they aren’t conches. It’s dread, victorious. It’s exhaustion, victorious. It’s the gyre that managed to pull me down within it, victorious. It’s my demon, victorious. It’s their demons, victorious. All of it loud and valiant and clear and screaming. Screaming like all the conches from beneath the seas and the oceans and the waves and the water. But I can hear myself thinking meagrely behind all of the sound that conches don’t scream, they play. Maybe not anymore.

Asleep, and I wake up with scars on my palm from digging my fingernails into it. While the nerves, blue and innocent, stare up at me from my wrist, I can feel all the naïve that I am, breathing down my neck. As I lie down, I can feel my sins lie down with me and as I stand up, my head spins with the weight of not knowing, the reek of uncertainty paves it way to my nose and I almost faint. My vision blurs with millions of black seeds and I chant what Plath trusted me with while I’m falling— I am, I am, I am.