It Goes Like This

Now.

This is what happens now.

It’s three AM, and you’re alone. You’re tired. It’s been a long, hard fight, but the end is finally in sight. Just one last push, you tell yourself, and the sun will rise.

Now is when they take you.

You should have known that it would be like this. They wait until you’re vulnerable, and then they strike. They surround you, circling. Hello again.

Worthless.
Pathetic.
Selfish.
Weak.
A waste of time.
Of breath.
Of love.
Everyone would be better off without you.
They’d only be sad until they realized how much unnecessary space you’d taken up.

Failure.
Promise-breaker.

Coward.

Do it.
Do it.

You deserve it.
You deserve to die.

They only have to wait. Exhaustion will bring you to your knees, and then they move in. Hands at your wrists, your hips, your throat. You can’t even scream. It’s cold. Freezing

This is what happens now.

There’s a blade on your dresser. You could give them something to appease them for a while. A hurt and a failure in one—Oh, they’d love it, and then maybe they’d at least let you breathe. God knows they play with their food.

This is what happens now: you fight.

You twist. You kick. You bite. The sky’s still dark, but there are birds waking up somewhere and singing to the sun. You hear them. Damned if you can’t have faith in the invisible, too. You fight. They’re too cold to understand a heartbeat. You decide what happens now. Shadows can’t exist without a source of light somewhere. You’ve beaten them back a thousand times, and they’re still stupid enough to try again? Not a chance. Not this time, and not the next, and not in every lifetime after this. You are a warrior.

Adamantine.

This is what happens now: you win.

Sure as fall turns into winter, they’ll be back; these battles are the price of seeing spring. But now, as night turns into morning—now, you’ve won.