The harder the journey gets, the softer that pillow hits.

​I once had nightmares for years, then lucid dreams interrupted the devil and now I see nothing but black.  Emptiness; the strangest peace you didn't know you needed.  Yet, I find myself missing the nightmares. They reminded me that I was alive. I could taste blood in the snow like an ice cream cone made from the darkest of drizzles. I’ve crawled out of the mouth of a dead whale and swam to a shore made of pearl colored marble, hippos chasing behind me with half of their heads in the water, only their eyes and ears visible. I wondered who I would be without the nightmares. Who would I be without the taste of terror on my tongue, salted with blood laced snow storms?  Who would I be without becoming the dinner of a dead fish? I suppose I’m willing to find out.

I don’t know how many times I've reinvented myself. I have been forcefully, metaphorically killed and burned alive.  I came back sometimes as something more divine, but it always leaves a little note in the back pocket of my soul, sinister transcript in childish font. Sewn in the layers of my skin like tissue, waiting for the moment I fall weak enough to dig it out and reread it like I've relived my traumas a billion times. Or…I wait for someone to notice the paper cut that's turned tarnished, waiting for the kill and burn once again...

Sincerely,
​Violetta Alexis