The Chronicles of Insomnia

Dark nights, dark corners, two in the a.m. and I startle awake.

I flick on the lamps, but the darkness persists..in my head...it closes in on me, like hammerheads and serpentine shapes. An invisible fist smashes into my face, a cacophony of bright lights explodes into my vision. And the darkness keeps coming. Overwhelming, overpowering, nothing.
  

I shut my eyes furiously, I am not sure if I want to fall asleep again, for there is someone in my sleep, waiting to kill me..all over again.
  

It's cold, I'm freezing, and so I run.. Into a blizzard.. It gets harsher, scarier.. The flakes fall in a flurry, crimson in hue. Fires burn all over, trying to warm me. But the warmth is fleeting. Cold, Hard, Dust.

A rope! An anchor at the end! "Safety", it says. I reach out..and miss..and I fall..endlessly. I watch the ground, rushing up to meet me. It feels like a bad movie. "This can't be right", I say to myself, because usually I wake up, right before I die. Thud. Mangled, bloodied, broken, carcass.

I'm walking the coastline, the hours of predawn. I can't swim, so I avoid the water. But the tides find me. And I find myself riding atop the first wave of an immense tsunami, the ocean sucked back from the coast. I'm leading the carnage on a pristine little town, sleeping peacefully, tucked in and trusting, in its final moments. Swoosh. Crash, Swallow, Maul, Hurl, Disfigure. And then I walk away, as my soul drifts out to sea.

I call out to you, and you turn around. And I stand stricken. You are me. And I smile and turn away. Did I just give up on me?

I run. My legs are heavy, weighing me down, but I don't stop, not wanting to be the quitter I saw in the mirror. I run, the fleshy thing within my chest, beating in protest against my ribcage.

And I stop. I'm looking at myself looking at me. It is weird, the three of me. Wait, this cannot be right. "It's not real", I say it out loud. And I laugh, and I resume running. But then, I look down, and I don't see me running. What? The smile breaks across my face again.

What are you afraid of?
What is it that causes you to feel an overwhelming, debilitating sense of fear?
What keeps you coming back to a place, a point in time, maybe a page like this?

When I know I'm guilty, that knowledge is bad enough. Why would I let constant dwelling on the guilt overwhelm me? Why stew in that guilt?

I know I am guilty. I have lived with that knowledge for a while now. And will continue to do so. But I will not look away. And I will not punish myself anymore. It's your turn now.

Run..

Be Free