IT
I wasn’t careful. Despite dealing with it for years, I’ve never been able to kill it. All I’ve been able to do is to tame it, cage it and chuck it to the deepest darkest corner I could find. But now it’s back. Bigger and stronger than ever. “You’ve been through worst.” I keep telling myself, but that’s not true is it? Every time I think I’ve defeated it, it hadn’t even breathed its last breath, and yet I breath my sigh of relieve thinking it was gone. It was never gone. Hiding in the shadows as I enjoyed my time in the sun, as I finally came to be free. Just waiting for that moment. One moment. That’s all it took to bring me back down to where I began, back into the darkness, back to reliving the pain. I did not believe it when I saw it. “I allowed it to happen.” I ignored the signs - and there were many. I was too occupied trying to make the best of my time in the sun that I forgot to prevent it from coming back. Just as I caged it away the first time, it now has me caged. I was not ready, I spent 5 years celebrating the ‘death’ of it, not one moment spent preventing it from coming back. “I’ve done this before, I can sure as hell do it again.” I repeat this every single day to keep me sane. No evidence of past wars, no other has seen the scars, and not one soul knows of the ongoing battle. “It has never defeated me before.” It was close call many times, but it has never succeeded. I was never defeated, but I never did succeed in killing it either. “Does it die? Do I have what it takes to kill it?” I don’t know. All I know is that it’s back. It’s back and I’m scared, but battle it I will. This will either make or break me. With a body already full of cracks, it may be my last stand.
“No. It can’t be. It learnt.”
I wasn’t careful, because now I’m the prisoner of my own mind.