Umbilical

This is for you, wherever you are.

I know where you are; you live in a room. The same room I lived in for a long time. Isolated, disconnected, and with only fantasies for company.

My fantasies gave me hope. Yours keep you from falling over the edge, from lifting your veil - does what's underneath scare you? You've scared a lot of people. Scared, and scarred. Nothing sacred.

I'm imagining you now; staring at the popcorn ceiling, seeing nothing, utterly lost inside your brilliant, terrible mind. Sifting through decades of complex fiction, lies and pretence.

You've replayed these twisted versions of history so many times that you've made them your truth. I wonder how deep you've had to bury reality, can you reach it? Does it reach you? Does it jab at you in the dark with bony fingers?

You're completely absorbed; face set hard, jaw clenching, hands twitching - or are you picking at that lump on your neck? These compulsive tics betray you, they reveal things, like a poker player's tells. I've studied you, I know them all. I learned what to watch for, so I knew when to disappear, when to run.

I'm frowning now as I look at you, or am I wincing? Has the thought of you given me a headache? Did you give me a headache? Do you know I'm watching you?

Your face just cracked, as I watched it in my mind's eye. Did you mean it to? The tiniest crack, but I know it's there - we both do. You wanted me to see it, I think.

What's under the crack repulses me, it makes my eyes sting and my stomach churn, and sends flushing rushes of fear everywhere.

I make you turn away from me, it's easier. I can never look at you for long.

I take my mind away from the room, and leave you there. The repulsive part of you follows me, oozing. It's sticky, thick, not treacle, tar. Black, viscous, gross. It clings and spreads, down my throat and into my stomach.

It waits there quietly until I'm dreaming, when it suddenly rises up, without warning. I'll scramble away from other people in the dream, frantically clawing into my mouth. I'll have to pull it all out before they see it, are repulsed by it, by me. It will stretch like taffy - the more I pull, the more will come. Long, tough, ropes from the bottom of my gut, on and on. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, it will be gone, and the dream will continue as before.

This is all that's left of you now; you exist only fleetingly in my imagination, and when I battle your darkness as it creeps and slithers around my dreams. You hover between this world and somewhere else, a parasite jumping in and out of minds like mine to feed on the pain you caused them. You don't get to stay for long though, I don't let you. I'm stronger than you now - you are weak, empty, withering, powerless, pitiful.

One day when a million light years have passed, when these bodies and this lifetime are distant memories for us, ours souls will meet again. They will reflect together on all the lessons they learned in their many lives and talk of forgiveness, compassion, regret and sorrow. And it will be meaningless, and our souls will laugh together.

Until then, I'm glad I know where you are - in that room. The same room I lived in for a long time. Isolated, disconnected, and with only fantasies for company.

You live in the prison you built for me, and I am free.