A million different shards of glass are exploding all around me. They pierce my skin and itch my soul. Itches need to be scratched unless, of course, you have the self-control to put it off. Before the explosion, one could say that I had such control, but it has since been lost upon me. I crawl on my hands and knees searching for it in the dark, but it proves difficult to check every crevice.
The glass has stopped falling. Now, I sit in the dark with open wounds and no way to tend to them. They sit open and raw, growing hot with infection by the minute. Only the infection is a need, not a virus. A need to escape. All proprieties have bled out of my cuts, and I am left with the knowledge of only the most basic needs. Eat. Breathe. Sleep. Escape! The dark swallows me whole.
When I come to, my injuries have disappeared. They have been healed with a few kind gestures and some amiable words. I am able to move on now, slowly reverting to my old ways. There begins to be a hint of my former self. The one who had time for civility and pleasure. This is short-lived.
All it took was one snide comment, one dirty look, and suddenly the glass is flaming hot and shooting out at me. There’s no more light, and I’m back in the dark. I’m clawing at my quickly closing throat, sucking air into the tightening space. Fat tears are welling in my eyes, and screams are burning in my belly. The only thing keeping my lungs working: escape!
A million ugly, prodding eyeballs are fixed on me. They look at me as though I have just spilled the contents of my skull onto the floor. Do they not know they’ve caused it? They say I’m ugly and deranged but have they no sense? I became this way because of the glass twisting at my heart. My arteries are breaking and bursting because of the shards they have wrenched inside me. I am the monster and they are Doctor Frankenstein. Only in this case, I was the one who haphazardly sewed my pieces back together.
I count down the seconds until I’m free. Until the gate opens. When it does, so will my lungs. My injured heart will run at full speed, pounding and gasping, until it is free.
Here, there is only suffocation. But here there is also hope, and who said you had to be able to breathe to dream?
