It was only in dreams that I visited my darkness. Only then was I able to stare into the eyes of insanity. Nights were spent on high stools in dark toolsheds where I suffered. By writing to you I have unleashed this violent evil that stirs when called upon. Unfortunately, I do not know how to call it off. It lives in the comfort and safety of my walls, my floorboards, these organs I have developed since birth. It has seeped through pores in my skin and invaded me. Now I lay here, feeling visceral as I am spoken down to. Whatever is speaking to me is running its tongue down my neck and making me shiver. It is dimly lit in this room. The windows have been barred off and through the vertical cracks I see a dark night. Torture tools are hung up every way I look but the numbness in my legs prevents me from struggling.

In this moment I call upon your past, the angel you used to be before you were tempted by wrongful contradiction. I kneel before you because I have nowhere to hide and here I am, raw with fear, seeking the light. I deny these strong morals I have created for myself and cry at the thought of being just like you. It is not god I am denying, because god does not exist to me. I am chasing away this stability, this happiness that I could live in peaceful comfort with. Darkness is messing with my head. It wants me to risk excitement and thrill. The thought of it is nice, sugary and sweet in experience. The problem is the consequence- pain and twisted limbs.

A trail of smoke curls up from a source I cannot identify. It is aimed at me-teasing my lips, chin, nose, the curve of my eyelids. Filling me with an elusive excitement.
“What is it you seek?” A voice from the darkness speaks to me.
“Happiness,” I answer him. I cannot tell if it is only in my mind that I am stuttering. My voice comes out weak like an infant’s, so small and insignificant that I can’t help but gasp.
“Lies. Now tell me what you really meant to say.”
I am afraid to answer, afraid that I will be granted what I ask for and afraid I will sound petty once again.
“Fear,” I whisper, “Love, loathing, angst, anger, rage, disappointment, jealousy.”
“A feast of true emotions. Do you understand this can only be granted to you by one menacing power?”
“I want to live, breath, and die.”
“Either way you will.”
“No… I want to breathe it all in. Everything. This world’s oxygen.”
I feel the demon smile coyly. Desperately I claw with my eyes in the dark, trying to identify a silhouette of the thing before me.
“Child, there are many desires in this world, desires you could only dream of feeling. You are too young and inexperienced to encompass all this in the span of your youth, for it will only be youth you will live through. Ask yourself if all of this is worth it.”