The Monster in My Womb

No matter where I go or what I do,

a hollow follows me — silent, patient, faithful.

There is nowhere to escape.

It yearns for an embrace so desperately

that I am always the one engulfed,

immersed, welcomed into its ache.

No matter how fiercely I avoid it,

it never loosens its grip.

Inside it lies a complexity

I am forbidden to see,

yet it sees me perfectly —

cell by cell, bone by bone.

It hurts without wounding,

numbs without healing.

There is no way out of this.

Each time I reach toward the green side,

I am dragged back to the gray path —

for the trees offer it no comfort.

The monster feeds on darkness.

It is a fetus in my womb that will never be born,

a cord that will never be severed.

I carry it everywhere,

and it grows heavier with each step.

Day by day,

the guest swells larger and larger,

while I grow smaller, thinner, weaker.

There was once a girl pregnant with twins:

one named Happiness,

the other Sadness.

But Sadness needed to eat —

so it devoured Happiness,

leaving no trace behind,

as if it had never existed.

Because Sadness is like that.

It erases what it feeds on.

It grows until it becomes you,

and then you become the Sadness

in someone else’s Happiness,

consuming them the way you were consumed.

And so the cycle repeats,

again and again.

The monster’s hunger is endless.

It makes monsters out of people,

and people nourish the monsters in others.

There is no end to me,

no end to this inheritance —

a cycle looping into eternity,

darkness birthing darkness

long after light forgets our names.