Shadows (5 Day following)

This is something I wrote over a 5 day period, each day continue based on something the final sentence from the previous day had ended with.

These shadows in which I live only serve to protect me from the world in which I don't belong. For when I decide to leave these shadows even for a split moment, my world turns upside down, and I'm left with nothing to call my own. So I hide again, but this time so much further away. And now I feel like it's darker then ever. And it's not that I can't do anything about it, it's I don't want to do anything about it because from here I at least feel safe. Yet these voices keep calling my name to try and pull me back and for some reason I always find myself heading towards it even for brief moments. And as much as I want to believe it's better to be out in the world, I'm scared to be crushed again by the world's cruel reality. And this reality is that we can never truly be happy. Just when you think you've found what your looking for, life comes down and steals everything away from you. So now your left with nothing but these shadows to surround you like a blanket of comfort keeping you safe. And it's this reality, that I keep in mind every time I venture a bit further from my shadows that keep me alive. So instead of thrusting this pain upon myself, I linger in the darkness where I am consumed. And the longer I linger, the more I feel the desire to escape myself. Lose myself in the world's torment. Some say some times it's better to hurt then to not feel at all. But how much of it's true is still unknown, not just to me but I believe to everyone we see around us. We all look for answers to the truth of our lives, however it's clouded from our vision by the shadows we surround ourselves in. But truth be I no longer know what my vision is. I sometimes wonder if my vision is clouded by the darkness or if the darkness is my vision. And this question will always remain with in me as long as I live, for in the darkness I believe I will remain for the rest of my life. And as sad as it sounds, it doesn't to me, for it's the one thing that keeps me going from day to day. And as much as people would like me to open up to them; I can't...at least no more. For the last time I tried, my life was crushed and is now holding on by a string. So this is why I hide in these shadows all around, isolating myself from the world instead of risking to have my final strand ripped apart. But with out risk, what is there in life? If I never take another chance, what's left to live? But if I do take another chance, I find myself trapped in a world that I can not speak to, leaving me boggled between misery of the brutal truth that I can never open up again or hiding in my darkness for the last time. Which is easier to face? My darkness that holds me close or the truth that will rip away at me from the inside? I still haven't decided, and I've yet to see any reason for choosing either so for now I'll remain where I am. In the shadows before my eyes.