Slipping

Dedicated to Samantha.

I'm losing it.

My mind is slowly slipping into the darkness.

It started out slow,

Blurry vision,

Strange noises in my ears.

But now it has began.

The end of me.

Slipping into the place between sanity and madness.

Between hell and heaven.

I start to hear sounds,

Calling to me from the abyss.

My world distorts,

Shaping between my dreams and my imagination.

Silent whispers in the odd hours of the night.

Things popping into my vision and disappearing.

Sometimes I see her,

Before the incident,

In the middle of a fog,

Swinging at a playground.

She calls to me,

"Daddy, where did you go?

Why did you leave me daddy?"

Her voice brings me to tears.

And then it snaps back to my life,

A simple man crying to himself.

Trees begin to move,

Streetlights begin to flicker,

Sewer caps begin to slide open.

And then it snaps back to reality.

I feel a deep pain in my chest,

I look around and everything is on fire.

Everything smoldering and decaying into rubble.

I blink again and there I am,

Standing in military uniform looking back at myself.

Not three feet away.

I am plunging a bayonet into my heart.

The pain worsens.

I look at the plunged blade,

I am bleeding.

I cover my heart as I rip the blade out of my heart and walk away.

I check again, blood still on my hands.

And then I blink.

I'm sitting at my desk with my hand on my heart.

I am no longer bleeding.

My mind is dieing,

Slowly closing me into a world of fear and pain.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

All I can do is hope that she is on the other side,

Still calling for me,

So that when it is over,

I can be with her.

I am slipping into nothing,

Farther from reality,

And closer to my daughter.

"Even if he takes you from this earth,

I will follow you into the dark."

~ Jared B to Samantha Violet B.