the validity of autonomy

at first glance i look much like you. i appear normal and of sane mind. i may even seem like i have everything together. i wear composure and dignity with a smile on my face but there's something different about me. there's more than meets the eye and it's been following me for oh so long. i thought i left it dead and buried a thousand miles back but it has found me in this new place. it once made its presence known while it would look deep into my eyes, but now it dresses in such subtlety. it sleeps beneath the floorboards, it hides in my shadows, and escapes right past my fingertips. i have seen the aftermath of it's grasp on my life but i've never seen its face. it has worn me thin, it has won again. i can't take this insanity, always checking over my shoulder. my eyes are bloodshot from so many sleepless nights and the paranoia is too much to handle. my weary heart yearns for rest so i'm leaving this all behind. if i leave while it sleeps there will be no way for it to find me, it will never catch me and i'll finally be rid of my demons. i will head to the hills. i will look to the cover of night for safety as i settle in the wilderness, so far removed not even my memories will be able to catch up with me. call it apathy but everything was just fine until it found me again, it always finds me. but how did it follow me all this way? maybe i was too careless when i was covering up my tracks, maybe it knew my plans. i close my eyes and try to tell myself this isn't real, but i can hear it breathing behind me. branches snap beneath the weight of all too familiar footsteps. i can't take this anymore! i'd rather die now than turn around and face my ever elusive nightmare. but i can feel it's stare on my back and it beckons to me in an inaudible voice to look at it. i pray for courage as i turn around but all bravery runs dry as my darkest fears come to life. it's body is hunched over under a million disfigured limbs. none of it's members functions like it was meant to. the stench from every carrion feast still lingers. my insides go cold as i look into it's eyes and i drown in twisted shades of pain and guilt, agony and despair. and then from behind a mouth that has been sewn shut i hear it tell me that this is what i am. could it be that it has been with me all along? right with me in every step? i'm giving up, this is all too much to take in. strip the bark from the trees and leave them bare. i will light a match and set my world ablaze. let it burn and consume every part of my existence, expose me for what i really am. let the truth of who i am be found in the ashes. you are my only hope to rebuild. you are my reality.