stigma

It's funny sometimes, the way things work out. You struggle, and conquer, and succeed. Then one day, without warning or need, a man stricken with poverty makes a desperate decision and your life is over. Or so you think.

Most of us are comfortable with the belief that either death brings the absence of life, or the ascension of the soul. Who can blame you? This belief's been shoved into every orifice of your body since birth. Well the hard truth is, that's all bullshit. Life goes on beyond the expiration of the flesh. Be it some sort of divine punishment, or simply nature, I am being tortured by the faces of my past. Tormented by the places I once adored.

You had no idea. When you pulled that trigger and sent me tumbling through a hole into this morbid disaster of an existence, something changed in you. To spill my blood, to watch it slither peacefully from the wound until my heart would strain to pump it no longer; it changed you, didn't it? Can't you still feel me?

I gaze and ponder and I can't help but think I'm still alive. I breathe, I sleep, I yearn for love just the same as any human. So why can't you hear me? There are only so many words I can roar into your ears before the temptation completely overwhelms me.

Am I real?

Vaguely I can remember the day I fell asleep in a hospital bed and awoke almost in a state of coma. What did I do to deserve this? How can you possibly punish me for the actions of those I cannot control? You say he looks like me, you say he has the same name. We're not the same. Don't you ever fucking forget that. He is dead. Sometimes I feel like I've seen, or rather felt, a ghost.

Then when I woke up this morning I found I had squeezed through the flesh and muscle of a man's neck, still constricting his corpse with a wild grin on my face. Must be a logical explanation for all of this. I... he... no. What's done is done. There's no turning back now.

I am alive.