Never the Same.

He knows all too well, that the dissolution of his fears is merely temporary...or so speaks the voice that resides further down, below the surface of his skin: a red king wearing a false crown. Coincision between what once was and what will be keeps his spirits from reeling.

Shortly after a brief resurgance of fear, his heart grows cold and his intentions are clear: what if the enemy only lies before the mirror?

Honing a blade to cut out, once and for all, every ounce of nuisance; every memory of every downfall. He sharpens said blade, and feels the pressure thicken with each second that the clock's hands tick.

The heart grows restless, beating hard within its cage of bone and flesh- like some long-endentured slave. His eyes close, as the blade is aimed- he strikes once, and the blood falls like rain.

The pain...it is merely consequence for relief. The brief moment in his mind when all the babbling begins to cease. His thoughts are clear, his mind no longer numb; he wishes each moment were as clear as this one.

He opens his eyes to see that the blade is merely a thought- a crushing blow to the barricade in which he had placed before his heart. There is no blood, no wound, just a menacing hole where the fears had once stood; and what to replace them with? Love? Hope? "If not those, then what?" he asks the empty room in which he resides...falling ever-onward towards unconsciousness.

Sleep beckons, but he cannot turn his back on this goodbye- a long-due farewell to the fears and the lies that he's held within his own child-like mind...his eyes close once more, and the blade is in his hand again.

He says, "I can do this," but he knows: there is no way in Hell he can do it on his own. So he fills the hole with all that he truly knows; and stitches the mental wound with his heart-strings- tying them up in bows..."This is my gift," he tells the room, "a gift to myself, to ward off my self-made gloom," and he opens his eyes once more, and sees only the light from the window upon the wall.

"Surely," he thinks, "this gift, this chance, this opportunity cannot be in vain- I've given to the best of my abilities, so far, and made it to this point without shame." The blood that he'd envisioned on his hands, and on the bed, before him, flowed backwards, into his veins.

He closed his eyes once more, and finally answered the beckoning call from sleep he'd been warding off with visions of what may have been, and what still may yet to be. His heart slowed, his mind wandered, as it does when it dreams its dreams.

He did not wake up the same. He was never the same.