Sleep

By Hussain Kachwala

I've been talking to myself a lot. More than usual. 

I don't know if I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin or worse, and my  chest is racing for reasons I don't know. 

Is this why I talk so much? To let it out, for if it stays within, something inside  will break the walls and take charge, so I keep myself preoccupied to keep that  creature frozen in time? 

The floodgates of that certain corner of my mind have creaked open again, the  corner that I had locked for a reason. I'm slipping again, no doubt about it. 

Phasing in and out of various realities at once, trying to see the future in worlds  where the choices were a bit different, and outcomes a slight softer. 

Delusions or visions? What is their nature, and why do I get stuck in them so  often? Why do I feel like a spectator watching a play unfold? 

Like a fly caught in a web, but the spider's movements are erratic; I do not know  how and when fate will sing its melody. 

The sensation on my skin feels different, yet not in a new way, I have known  this feeling before. 

The void has begun its conquest yet again, and with each defeat its malice  grows. I can feel its acrimony upon my flesh, as it speaks to me for the first  time, in the tongue of someone I used to know, someone who I thought had been  vanquished to time. 

The void must be faced, and I must sleep again.

By Hussain Kachwala