My nightmares come to life in a body of glass.
The kind that reflects the image it observes, forcing you to look and see what stares back. These lips are the same ones that told my sister I wouldn’t miss her. These eyes hide the demons just below the surface waiting to escape. These hands have felt pain as much as they have caused it. It, as if pain is a thing that can be grasped and tamed. Quick, put it in a glass box. Whatever you do, seal it tight and don’t let it escape. For pain is a fickle thing that can cause fear and toy with the mind. Observations have shown fear still exists deep within her, my sister, that is. Not fear of what, but fear of who. There is no going back. I have already done the damage, for the demons are me. I have sat and stared so long that even the demons slipped away, but what remained was far worse. It was a sad, broken girl that built armor around her heart. The kind strong enough to last. This girl went to war--not for, but against those who loved her the most. Invisible wounds inflicted upon her. She grew angry at her suffering, and with that she made them hurt like she had been made to hurt. Hurt that reflected her dark intent. Each attack more vicious than the last. Away her enemy tried to flee, but there was no escaping. They were made to suffer, to look evil in the eye. Never knowing when something would push the girl over the edge. Soon the girl realized that the one person she hated the most was herself. It was then that she turned the fight inwards in a last ditch effort to take control of her own pain. To cause her own hurt. She attacked her own demons in an attempt to destroy them, but she found that to destroy them would be to destroy herself. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t, instead she became their prison. That girl is the same one that stares back at me every time I look in a mirror. She is my demons and my nightmares, but also my strength. I am her and she is me. I can feel her pain, hell, I’ve cried her tears. Tears that remind me of the casualties I caused to my loved ones. To them I am a person to be handled delicately. They don’t see the strength it takes me to contain my demons. That girl must do it by herself, because she doesn’t want them to see the evil she sees in the mirror every morning. It is all about hiding how my body has become a prison for the darkest parts of myself. I am stuck forever guarding the prisoners. Most days it is easy enough to put on a smile and fool the world, but some days I get stuck in the body of glass, staring at the reflection of pain and suffering that hides there. Wondering if the memories will ever stop being nightmares, and if the sad, broken girl will ever truly heal into a happy, whole woman. Is it possible to haunt yourself? Yes; yes, it is. |
Emily Wolff is a senior majoring in English with a double minor in Pre-law and Creative Writing. She plans to attend graduate school in hopes of being able to make the world a better place. Her love for books is what created her love for writing, and she wants to use her love for writing to inspire the world. She has come to find that it is therapeutic to express herself through poetry.
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