Dear Shadow,
The days are slowly turning into gloomy heavens, swollen with unbreakable weight and I am waiting restless for the right time to release what has been pressing against my ribs. There was once a glimpse of light, the faint touch of an angel and it felt inevitable, written somewhere before I was born. I treaded carefully, afraid to disturb it, but it slipped under my skin all the same. The hunger for perfection turned bitter in my mouth, curdling into mistakes and misjudgements I could not take back.

Every night, before I let my body fall into the pretense of rest, I hear the words of failure echo in the darkness. They grow, multiplying, until they sound like a choir of vespers praying for my downfall. I surrender to them because I no longer believe in winning those prayers back. I do not get to dose off and dream like other people. My sleep is thin, fractured, my eyes webbed with red lines, my face worn to something pale and hollow. They like the look of a zombie, so I feed on myself, gnawing at the soft parts of my mind until there’s almost nothing left.

Those who get to dream are the lucky ones. For me, there are only shadows pacing the walls, shivers tightening under the skin, heartbeats that falter without warning. Sometimes I think the nights are feeding you too, letting you swell in the corners until you can reach me without moving.

And then morning comes, clean & untroubled, as if the night never existed. I am expected to speak in the words of winners, to bear the strength of storms, to keep a heart of metal. I cannot. I’m sorry. I am sorry to the watchers who still entrust me with the task of carrying on.

The scarce stars in a desolate sky offer their light for only a heartbeat, and I have lost it. I always seem to lose. And yet, in the mornings I remain blinded by the sun, a merchant and a healer ready to forge castles in the sky with the fate of Sisyphus. But if you like the sound of my dance, I will drag you alongside me, all the way into Hell, where the lights are forever red.