Inner

The Encounter

       
The Darkness That lies Within.

I tried asking myself, because I'd sought answers from so many people and so many things, and my hunger remained yet, insatiable.

So I turned inwards, dug deep in fear that I might find what I sought and yet persistent, because fear was not enough to get rid of my hunger for clarity.

I was nearing insanity from the million voices screeching their own versions of clarity out to me. Or maybe it was the silence that drove me crazy. The muteness from the one voice I needed to hear. The icy numbness and the cold shoulder I got each time I turned to her for help.

I'd silenced her for so long, we'd become strangers who knew not of each-others existence. Only, but myths and speculations of ourselves floated around our very different, yet very alike worlds and she'd turned her back on me like I'd done ages ago in my pursuit of greener pastures. I'd forsaken her, my darkness.

I was at the brink of an abyss formed from my own helplessness. And only I could save me.

So in fear of finding nothing or maybe finding everything—everything I'd forsaken and ran away from because I'd been told they were the bad and dangerous things.

In fear of finding everything, I turned inwards.

___

    The door that led to her was ajar. It had never once been closed. I had just been too cowardly to step in because it was dark. Darker than night itself, the room before me loomed eerily and I feared what I'd find if I ventured so far. Too far, too deep. Alone and helpless.

I remember being there once.

Not quite there, but there were times I'd been forced down those dungeons by my worldly demons. But I'd always found my way back up to the light. I never stayed long enough to find out what lived in the dark—what is the dark. I never cared enough. But now, I'm left with no choice.

The light has suffocated me long enough. Continuously choking me with flimsy, short-lived bursts of happinesses that clearly belongs not to me. Force-fed joy and fake laughter that always leave me cold and bitter after they've ran their courses. Truthful lies and pretentious memories made by a person that definitely isn't me but bears my name and acts like me in my own life and body.

Now, the light turns its back against me.

I had never quite reached the door to her world—my darkness. I never saw the door. And now I wonder if I truly did never see it or if I'd only convinced myself into believing that such a place did not—could not—exist. Not inside of me. And yet there I stood, deep in my own wilderness.

A cursed land I'd forever refused to claim ownership over.

And there she stood, alone in the windowless cold dark room. Thin and withering with lifeless, dark eyes that threatened to wrench my soulful breaths apart. She was a reflection of everything I feared I'd become. She was me and I was her. And only now did I see it.

She was the girl that lived in my mirror, breathing beneath the surface of my makeup. The girl whose cries I hid away from the world and replaced with forced bright smiles. She was the depressed and hopeless girl. The ugly girl I could never look at in the mirror, not until I had painted lines of perfect happiness across her face. She was the girl that lived in the wake of my shadow; the tilt in my every smile, the hidden brokenness in my every laughter. She was the dagger buried within my heart, my unending source of pain. And her dominion always took over along with the blanket of the darkest nights.

    Life, it seemed was no friend of hers—I doubt its a friend to anybody. Her mind had waned, thoughts distorted and troubled from the battles she'd had to fight alone. The battles against our demons. Battles we should have fought tooth and nail together, but instead I'd been too cowardly to stand alongside her. And now she stood, a lone survivor, the reflection of life's unfairness to me—to us.

I had continuously reached for the light, running from her—my darkness. And in the process, I had lost myself. And even now as I stood in her presence, her coldness overwhelmed my senses and I shivered in fear, eyes darting around for a light switch.

It was too dark. And I'd always been afraid of the dark, even though that darkness resides still, inside of me.

She never blinked. Not once. And we both stood, taking in the presence of each other. I was the light and she was the dark.

She—a reflection of everything I strived to never be.

And I—probably everything she dreamed of being.

I had so much to say. A million questions to ask. But my tongue remained rolled up and my lips refused to part. It felt like all the breath had been knocked out of my lungs and I was a struggling fish on land, unaccustomed to the dryness the oxygen carried. Unaccustomed to the darkness.

Guilt riddled my senses. Shame and despair clogged my lungs and darkly burning tears stung my eyes. I didn't deserve to be in her presence, for I had forsaken her.

The door I came in through slammed shut.

And we were truly alone now. My darkness and I.

Her bones creaked as she sat on a stool I'd only just noticed. Her eyes finally freeing me from their coldness as she stared away from me, into nothing.

The world had turned pitch black. Or maybe it was just my world that lost its colour and everyone else continued to live happily. I wouldn't know. The only thing I could see now was her. My darkness.

And I succumbed to her hold. I took solace in her coldness and let the silence become my friend.