Into the Storm

You walk the streets. Aimlessly but in the garb of purposeful busyness. Your eyes dart from light to shadows, never meeting other eyes. You never look back but your eyeballs shoot back into your head to gaze fearfully backwards, to check if someone is following. You cross squares, turn corners but your flights always end in circles, reaching where you started. And when you walk back in, pain pounces on you from where it has been hiding.

Your sleep fights sleeplessness but always loses. You cry, laugh. Hit out at everything that moves. And those that don’t budge. You cover your ears, shut eyes. Your desperation slides down your throat as white drops of inducers.

I run but abruptly turn back and ram straight into my pain. It is a red light that sucks me in. It pricks, pierces. It is a high-pitched scream inside my head, a drill down each of my teeth. It is a needle that stitches my pores close together so that my breath is trapped writhing inside me. And I hit back. I strike out until the clouds of pain disperse. I plunge into the whirlpool, I fly into the turbulence. I catch pain and terrify it into flight. I bleed but exhale through a zillion free pores.

I fight pain, you suppress it. Your blood runs cold, I simmer in maniacal challenge. You wear blinds over your eyes, in monotones. I crush tragedies under my feet, into multi-coloured pieces of transparent glass.

I am battle-scarred but proud to be alive. You are pure as a petal but stink of escapism. Who is the loser?