I am used to the monster that lives curled in my chest. She claws at my throat when I try to speak. She wraps her tail around my lungs and squeezes until I cannot breathe. She constricts and screams and cuts. She is a dragon, furious and dangerous and she lives inside of me and she has for as long as I can remember. They call her different names: Stress. Fear. Worry. Their names are too soft, too trivial, too weak. I know the true nature of the beast and I call her something else. I call her Anxiety. I call her evil. Demon. Monster. Pain. No matter what I call her, she curls up beneath my sternum and she feeds. She feeds on every skipped heartbeat, every uncomfortable silence, every unkind word that comes to my ear. She feeds on the toxic sludge that has been poured over me time and time again. She is strong. She crushes bones, she swallows common sense, she ignites the air until all that is left for my lungs is fire and toxic smoke. I have lived with the monster in my chest for so long, I no longer try to rip her from her home between my ribs. She tears at my flesh and makes every moment feel like I am bleeding. I live with a dragon in my chest.
There is a new monster now, that puts the dragon to sleep. There is a new monster that is stronger, more dangerous, more evil than Anxiety could ever be. He is dark-made of smog and gas and something intangible. He settles into the joints of my limbs and slips into my tear ducts until they ache and itch and sting. He is not loud like the dragon. He is soft, persistent, inescapable. He is stronger than the dragon, stronger than me. They call him sadness. Grief. Loneliness. They do not know the depths of his empty eyes. I have seen into the abyss and I call him Depression. He is not my friend, he does not want good for me, he does not want me to survive. This new monster puffed in the face of the dragon and she fell asleep, too tired to fight-to claw-to climb. She sits like a rock in my chest while the new monster grabs me by the throat and whispers horrors in my mind. He binds my hands and lays me down and tells me not to get back up. He tells me not to eat and not to try and not to care. He tells me life is not worth living and I listen. He is so convincing. When I try to argue, he puts his heel on my windpipe until the edges of my vision fade to black. Sleep is so much easier than fighting. He makes every moment feel like I am coming apart at the seam where my soul meets my mind and darkness becomes a familiar escape. I live with smoke in my head.
They like to fight, the monsters inside of me; the dragon and the smoke. When the dragon wins, my senses are on overload. I see danger in every corner and resting for even a second might mean death. When the smoke wins, I am dead on my feet. I cannot see straight, and breathing is exhausting. The monsters inside of me; the dragon and the smoke, they like to dance. They work together to wear me down. The dragon fans the flames and spins me faster, faster, like a top until I launch into the sky. She relishes my scream, my panic as I fly, my inability to stop, my lack of control. The smoke overtakes me and stops me instantly and I fall like a stone back to earth. He relishes my impact, my blackout, the ache of my breathing that feels like too much work.
I wonder, how long can one human be tossed between monsters before the body fails and the lungs give out? I wonder, how long can I last in the clutches of these evil things inside of me? I wonder what will win; the dragon or the smoke?
