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A challenger approaches, the challenger lurks in the pixels of a screen

Or does it lurk in the doubt,

coiling in between my ankles, cold scales and leeching warmth away

What if, it calls, sings softly, in the voice it has always had, even in childhood

Pictures of horses, of dragons, drawn to life with seemingly effortless swipes of a pen or pencil

And beside that paper - me, unmarked paper, a growing resentment

Why bother? it hums, sliding up around my neck to reach the ears I haven’t grown into yet

Why even try translating your imaginings onto paper, when others can do that?

The dragon that hesitantly comes to life looks at its cousin with mournful eyes -

flat, undefined, as though it died confined to be 2-D on the page - no muscle

no grandly arching wings stretching nearly off the page

See? whispers the voice (sad, triumphant, angry, who can truly tell)

It leaves trails down my mind, across my thoughts - blood trails of apathy that ache like infected cuts.

It doesn’t bother to use fangs - who has need of teeth when apathy burns for longer?

Its apathy births a twin - indelible, its own teeth bared in denial.

Why not try? it roars, where the other voice whispers.

everything starts small, everything grows -

The coiling presence doesn’t bother to laugh, but its twin cringes away regardless.

Do we really believe that?

(It doesn’t limit itself to reality though, that’s the cruel irony.)

With every scroll, it awakens.

We’ll never be that good, it hisses.

Its solutions sing sweet as rotting fruit, but by far, its cruellest trick is impersonation.

A facsimile, a false twin rises from the apathy,

a wounded voice.

We’ve done well before, it speaks, and it speaks truth (another bitter cruelty).

Would it not be better to take up an already shining creation, to present it under a shifted light

rather than stare at the void of an empty paper, a blinking curser, a scribbled-over sketch?

You know that one’s good, at least.

Most days, it’s hard to even tell if the false twin is false - it speaks with the same voice as bared-teeth obstinance.

What if, sings the voice, coiling between indecision and the blank pages

Better not to try than to be bitten, says the voice below the song.

The twin snaps and snarls at the apathy drifting around its head,

roars at the blood trails left by its twin, the cruel mirror

(is it cruel, if it speaks truth? Does it?)

They share the same frustrations, it seems.

Another empty page, and two sets of eyes watch the curser blink,

drifting around my ankles, snapping at their twin, pushing it back down -

It is always unknown, which will win at the beginning of things.

A new challenge - is it worth facing, or is it better to read other works, feeding insecurity to the ever-growing ouroboros.

The snapping of teeth, a hissing retreat.

The soft words linger, even as the words appear to fill in the void.

What if?