I wasn't like you, or me, now.
I wasn't like anything.
Not anything safe, at least.
(II)
Slept with my head resting in a pile of dirt every night.
Every morning when I reluctantly came back to life, the dirt pile was gone.
Sucked through my mouth, into my constantly withered stomach, into my nightmare.
My nails were always crusted, drool always thick, with the blood and slime of a smaller, more meaningless creature than myself.
Always.
Thorns and fangs and dangerous thoughts tore at my skin every time I moved, stripped me to the bone, to the guts and the softness.
Couldn't decide whether to pray to or scream at God, so I did neither.
Only prayed to myself, only screamed at the ghosts I knew were everywhere.
Had no desires, only instincts, only impulses, only a primal, magnificent drive.
The only thing I needed to do was to destroy and devour, everything around me, myself.
Friends with the buzzing things I snapped at.
Friends with the moldy puddles I drank from.
Friends with the vague notion of loneliness.
Terrified of the moon.
The stars.
Told them my secrets and then frantically searched for a place to hide.
On the rare occasion that I saw my reflection, I wept.
Howled.
Disintegrated.
Hollowed.
Had no idea I was sick.
Had no idea what health was.
The trees were the only ones who knew me, and they didn't even know what color my ragged eyes were.
I would've loved the trees if I'd had any feelings.
Wandering and trapped.
Fearless and snared.
Savage and imprisoned.
The sky was my cage and I was its master.
With my cracked lips.
With my grey teeth.
With my puke-and-pollen-stained tongue.
I smiled to prove to the sun that I was a threat.
That I was full of venom and intention.
That I was the one who'd hunt it down and tear it apart.
I would be blind but it would be dead.
When my prey was kind or stupid enough to ask about my family, I said I didn't remember them.
Nobody missed me because nobody had ever met me.
My former life never haunted me because I didn't have one.
Didn't suspect I was being sought.
Didn't suspect I was needed.
Didn't suspect I mattered.
(III)
It found me in a puddle of fading sunbeams.
Blinked at me, whimpered.
Looked just as bruised as I did, just as ripped up by nature's horns.
Just as pathetic.
If it valued its life, it would've fled.
It didn't flee.
Curled up next to me instead.
Trembled hard in the diseased warmth of my kill.
And with its unwarranted trust, it paralyzed me into caring.
Within a shivering heartbeat, if there was anything I knew better than destruction, it was protection.
Protecting what little I had created.
Protecting my way of barely-life.
A defenseless thing that loves you quickly can kill you even quicker.
Didn't make a sound when I pressed my calluses into its throat.
Didn't protest when I pressed harder.
Accepted it all when I silently explained why it had to die.
Might've been seconds before it stopped breathing.
Might've been years.
Neglected my hunger and buried it, shallow.
Its headstone, a loose pile of dirt.
A pile of dirt embracing my dirty skull and its mangled contents.
(IV)
Every night, starving myself.
Every night, coughing up decrepit soil.
Every night, dreaming of the life I didn't swallow.
Hundreds, millions of nights.
Ages ago.
Eternities.
(V)
I live in the real world now.
I have a few friends and I worry that I'm not calling my grandmother often enough.
I watch TV and I heat up shitty food in the microwave.
I bathe regularly.
I buy the best shampoo available, none of that store brand crap.
Because I need it.
Because I can still feel it.
Because it clogs the drain and darkens the water.
My hair is always filthy and my scalp always itches.
I wash and scratch, specks of it floating to the floor, getting caught under my fingernails.
And everything tastes awful.
Tastes like unrelenting shame.
Like weak ghosts.
Like dirt.
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