The Beast

In the night it comes to me in waves of angry emotion as I lie awake in the dark. It rushes up my stomach and into my throat, it squeezes the air out of me, it pounds the piece of skull behind my eyes into dust. It plays no tricks, it doesn't need to. The words, the thoughts, the feelings I long to share burn inside my veins in floods of kerosene and it knows this, it sets me on fire. Just enough that I can feel my body ache with wanting to be held. Wanting to be looked at. It hits me over the head until I can think of nothing else, until within my crushed skull is a slush of gray matter. I am alone. I am deathly, painfully, fully alone.