Epiphany

“My demons are nocturnal. As soon as my hand leaves the light switch and the last speck of fluorescent white light is gone, they rise, invariably, from the resulting shadows. I have known them to take many incorporeal forms - Nostalgia, Betrayal, Jealousy and even Irony. With metronomic consistancy, they inhabit the night, taunting and teasing my subconscious.  Their unflagging determination to break me is slowly paying off. My brain responds to their every whim. They mock my naiveté then, and my helplessness now. My deepest and darkest fears are confirmed in their presence. People who I never thought were capable of hurting me deliver mortal blows to my soul relentlessly as those shape shifting beasts stand there and laugh at my agony. Their routine is perfectly choreographed, designed to extract every bit of optimism that I might have and leave me drained and emotionally crippled.  Sleep eludes me, preferring instead to bestow her healing powers upon other people , who actually have any hope of recovering. And by now, my mental acrobatics, induced by those despicable fiends have left me too tired to do anything else. So there I am, stranded in that purgatory in between sleep and consciousness, half alive. I pray desperately for a release, any release at all. But all I hear is the occasional sadistic laughter of my demons and the promise of a new hell the next night.”

This is what I want to tell people when they ask me the reason I do not try to sleep nowadays. But they would not listen. And if they did, they would not understand. So I just tell them, 

“I am too afraid to turn off the light.”