My Escape

I breathe.

I eat.

I sleep.

Days come and go, blending into months and years, and I fade in and out of each one as new pieces of myself work their way outwards from my core, pushing the fragments of "old me" through my skin. I am one person, pierced by shards, thousands of iterations of me.

It's a shield of sorts. An invisible reminder that I'm strong enough. I've made it this far.

People pass me in hallways, their words bouncing harmlessly off my glass barrier.

Friends and family offer hugs, but they don't know that they might get hurt--or worse, damage these pieces of me. If handled roughly, they might... fall away, leaving rubbery holes, burrows to my bones.

I can't risk it.

Then the harsh shadows and grasping hands lash out, strike me in the back, and send me to the ground in a shower of opaque memories. My hands claw the dirt away, and I dig downward, a crystal hedgehog, to retreat into a safer place. Inevitably, the hole behind me collapses, hiding the broken shards behind me forever.

Memories escape my mind.

I am one person, slowly losing what made me a person. So I hide from it all, freefalling into worlds of fantasy and mystery. These realms I know so well.

The shadows can burrow too. Hands reach through crumbling dirt walls, grasping around the computer's monitor, threatening to peel away my layers.

I shut my eyes, and transport myself into the past. When I open them, the orange infection stares out at the new world around me.

I call down dragons.

Climb Canadian peaks.

Swim in the aftermath of highstorms.

I am lost in an endless pool of nostalgia, replaying the tracks of my childhood time after time after time.

With each repeat, it loses its magic.

And I step closer to the shadows with each passing day.

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