Embracing the Darkness

She stopped letting people get close, she had become master of her mask and forged friendships based on half-truths. The invader left for a period, but our girl had become a husk of what she once had been. She ran headfirst towards danger, searching for anything to make her feel, she needed to feel, and she did for fleeting moments. She escaped herself. She drowned herself in alcohol. Felt painful bites of happiness with the heavier things but the happiness was fleeting, and the fall back was hard and brutal. She began to welcome pain; she embraced it because it was something to feel and then like all the other things, she stopped feeling it. Rage again was pacing inside of her, rattling her rib cage like a stuck door, it made purchase on her rib cage and climbed. It climbed up her throat and wrestled with her tongue. She fought it internally trying to swallow the fire that burned her, her rage, her tamed beast turned on her and forced its way to the surface. Rage kept people at bay and those that still stuck around after were thought fit to stay. Rage crept back down crawling back to the darkness that comforted it, to calm it as if to say it will be okay.

Darkness held her each night as she slept, rage watched as her nightmares unfolded and sat in shock as it recognized darkness in each of them. it saw darkness in her eyes taking the brunt of the damage and holding it in safe keeping until she was ready for it. Her nightmares held only part of the terror she had survived because the rest was kept in reserve until it knew that she could manage them. it knew she would eventually, but she was still fragile under its protection. Rage simmered and flickered as darkness allowed it see glimpses of the true nightmares that lingered and restlessly paced inside the darkest part of it. This went on for years the invader crept back in and instead of curling up and resting it watched withdrawn with Rage. The invader was impenetrable and took the pain from the darkest parts of the darkness. It swallowed the memories and tucked them safely away. The gesture of letting Rage and the Darkness know that as their girl turned for comfort, she would never touch darkness and see what it had hidden or shielded from her. That when the time was right the invader would leave and deposit those stolen moments back where they belonged. The invader had a job to do within their host and was only there for momentary reprieve but would soon depart and leave her more broken then when it arrived.

When grief came no one was ready for the havoc that was unleashed. Grief clung to her bones, it molded itself to every part of her body pushing Darkness and Rage into a cage. Darkness could not reach her; it could not comfort her, and Rage fought with sharp talons mangling the cage but never breaking free. Grief made Rage useless. Grief made her feel everything. Everything she had lost. Everything that was taken from her. It was unrelenting. Grief didn't stop at keeping the Darkness and Rage away, it stole her away from everyone. It broke her down and kept her head held under water. It drowned her until she began to fight back. Grief was vicious in its onslaught. When she finally emerged, she had changed. Changed again. Grief withdrew and hid but never left. Rage sat inside the cage even after it was unlocked, and Darkness pushed forwards spreading itself trying to hold her together and heal the damage she had taken but only finding more of itself barreling out to fill the spaces that no longer had occupants.

Years passed and grief came out more. Rage was subdued but no longer caged. Grief realized that Darkness and Rage played a vital role while it wreaked havoc. Darkness giving her moments of reprieve, Rage questioning why and raining its fire to calm the seas. Fire meeting water to fizzle it out and darkness to smother the smoke. It had to be a delicate balance. The invader would of course come and sit in the moments of stillness knowing when and how to slide the stolen moments into place before leaving but the invader always returned. The invader granted moments needed now for survival and survival alone. More pieces of her soul had flown to safety, had left to heal and the Darkness understood that parts would eventually make their way back, but it would take time. A new thing wormed its way inside and crept into her brain. This one had a voice; it was ugly and controlling as it made her look at herself and hate herself more. Darkness watched it as it made her get sick, made her stop eating, applauded her for herself destruction. It cheered when she went days without food, it celebrated that as a victory.

Darkness and Rage fought against it, but she had embraced it. She had welcomed this thing with open arms and used it as an escape, she spoke to the darkness about how eating or not eating had given her control over something in her life. It was something she had complete control over it until she did not. Until it was something uncontrollable, until it was not her doing it to herself, until it was a force to be reckoned with. Darkness held her as another part of her broke and grief and rage came in like a battering ram damaging and healing all at once. She was battered and broken down by the world and now herself. Rage stirred to life and placed itself in the driver’s seat peering out at the world. Watching as they forced her to sit at a table, as they watched as she ate and tried to keep her from the bathroom but failed. They watched and it watched. Rage watched as she destroyed those around her realizing in those moments that they were no longer separate entities that it had woven deep into her and could not pull itself away. Rage anchored. Rage was welcomed and preferred.

The ugly voice that crept into its hosts' brain got quieter and the sound of rage temporarily won but that ugly voice was replaced with another - a haunting one as her self-worth began to crumble. This voice was not a voice but a piece of her soul that fought back, a piece that thought if it shared ugly truths with her, she would stop trading her body out for a moment of reprieve, that she would realize the temporary high was temporary and she'd be left with deeper scars, but she didn't listen. She could not listen because she found her addiction in a man who played guitar and was just as broken as she thought she was. She would not listen because he spoke words that made her feel...happy. She looked past the important things - things like him being eight years her senior -her being fifteen and not ready- his own personal addiction to drugs -his own struggles. She tried to be the salve that healed what he had inside of him. She wanted to fix his broken. Darkness curled around her and held her at night shushing the questions that spiraled around in her head. When that broken man broke her - she did not collapse. She did not. She could not. She would not until years later when she would sit down her soul and bid another piece farewell.

In her teen years Darkness stole pieces of memories/shielded her from moments. More moments, and more. The invader came once more unburdening Darkness of the weight that had accumulated. Grief came for her self-worth's farewell. Darkness and Rage watched as she continued to try and be the healing balm for broken people who never stayed. When Recklessness joined the ranks Darkness and Rage looked at each other a look full of exhaustion as they stepped back to support her while this behavior took over. Darkness held her at night as she slept, as she wept, and Rage came forward only to kick people out of her life with a thundering calm indifference this was Rage's other side. A cold shield different from the numbness provided by the invader. This cold channeled everything inside into a cold heat allowing her to still feel everything but reveal nothing. This was a new mask, a new weapon she wielded for years at a time - darkness could not even reach her. Grief hit this wall and continued to grow until Darkness was sure that it would implode. She faced so much loss, if she had still had innocence, it would have again run-in terror to seek out healing. She was painted as being heartless by many and she only grinned at them. Accepting it. Accepting what the world had created by painting the target on her back that said was a trauma ridden girl that was too broken to speak. To fight for justice on her own behalf - to make them pay. She had not met vengeance and wouldn't until she was adult. She would not speak the words enough is enough or no more until she was in her thirties.

In her twenties Recklessness wreaked havoc still. The target was still painted on her. Darkness still took moments - pieces of her memory and the invader came again to unburden it. When Recklessness left, Rage once again snapped its cold shield in place and watched as just went through the motions. Darkness took over while she stayed in an abusive relationship, Rage fought to the surface a couple of times and won but was pushed back when Darkness revealed she would need it soon. She almost joined darkness eternally at twenty-six. It held her as her heart stopped beating, it cradled her when she started slipping into a coma, Darkness held her tenderly and brushed the hair from her face. Darkness, Rage, Grief, the Invader, and the Ugly voice all stood around her hospital bed ejected like a CD when her soul and heart tried to give out for a second time. Darkness slipped in bed beside her and just curled its protective tendrils around her. Grief wept beside her. Rage paced the room. The invader fought against the skin that kept it from shielding her exclaiming that she deserved to feel nothing and as she fought the machines whirred to life and they all saw the nurses and doctors breathe in a breath of relief. Their ejected entities now were granted entry. Darkness pooled back inside her stretching out and holding the child that always came to curl up with its tendrils it did not matter how much she had aged - the child always came to it for comfort...for safekeeping.