Sitting on my chest, clawing at my throat. Holding my breath, heart thumping against my ribs. Struggling to catch my breath.

It’s back again.

What’s back? Are you okay? Why are you acting like that? It was a dream, it’s okay. Stop hyperventilating. What are you doing?

It’s haunting me again. The shadows that move, the nightmares that haunt me. My past that chases me. These walls, they’re not a home. They’re a prison.

What? Go back to sleep. You’re speaking in tongue. I’m not having this conversation with you again tonight.

I need you! Why don’t you stay? Why do you insist on leaving me? Am I not enough? Am I not what you want?

Help yourself. I’ll opt for the couch. I’m not going to stay in this room while you twist and turn. I’m tired of watching me hurt.

I am you. I am you! If I hurt, you hurt. Why don’t you help me? We’re one. I need you.

You don’t need the demons. No, you want your demons. We are one yet you continue to push me away.

It comes with sleep. I argue with my demons that whisper urgent words of suicide and pain every night.

Apparently sleep paralysis is real and very painful. People blame it on my mis-matched eyes, saying that I see more than I tell. They say I see stuff that no one else can. I scare people with a simple glance. So…

Until my demons evaporate- I’ll latch onto them and hold them while I sleep, because my demons are apart of me, I’ve come to accept.