Something/Me

Something/Me

by Plaridel Batatan, Jr.

There’s this little demon hanging over my head

She calls herself vain

He call himself insane

It thirsts madly, as it thinks it was madly bled

There’s this tiny horn that slithers on my scalp

She digs from skin to skull

He lays poison and in my thoughts he skulks

Tick-tock, tick-tock, it sings and yelps

There’s this minute spirit perched upon my shoulders

She hisses her whispers and chuckles her riddles

He spins wretched tales and false solutions

From the bottom of my belly, I can feel them closer

There’s this little evil gnawing on my back

She pushes abruptly, lifting limb after limb in hate

He thumps me into lunges, forcing the pieces to break

I think I’ve awakened them, as my very sanity seems to crack

There’s this little demon

This tiny, evil horn

Who roots itself

Within

Me