demons under my bed
Some people are bound to demons that will forever live under their beds. The catch is that there is no exorcist to get rid of them, but you need sleep anyway, so you just have to learn to live with it. Be it a rock inside your shoe, be it a voice inside your head, you should never stop running, you should never stop thinking, because life is an endless walk in the Andes' winter. If you fall, a second longer you stay on the ground is enough to accept eternal darkness; turn into a human paleta for posterity.
It's a necessity to acknowledge the existence of these problems as immaterial, because the rock doesn't exist, and the voices don't exist either. Your intangible demons are yours only, and no one can fix your leak but yourself, being snowed in. Which reminds me of a song by Kimya Dawson called "The Competition", in which she sings about the voices in her head forcing her to be the best she can be, only to prove them wrong in saying she wasn't worth anything. The voices never left, but she grew acquainted to them, thus writing a mantra that I carry close to my heart to this day: "I got good at feeling bad, and that's why I'm still here."
Yesterday I posted a little entry for NIGHTMARE MIRROR called "salted caramel cookies", narrating one of my depression episodes, and how I managed to get over it. These episodes are one of the biggest demons living under my bed today. A life-time companion that knocks on my door every morning for the pétit-dejouner, and kisses me goodnight every time I go to sleep. I don't like them, really don't, but a nosy neighbor is still a neighbor, and you still need to live close together. Sometimes they bring me a poisoned apple that I can't help but take a bite, but the enchanted prince of time always comes to break my curse. And this way I move on, me and my necessary devils.
This whole demon thing reminds me, too, of that segment from "Green Beans":
"I want to cook you supper but
every pot and pan is being used
to collecct an incessant trill of
water dripping from the ceiling and
on the stove sits a great, awful
briar crowned devil fiddling with the
oven light switching it on and off
—on and off—
to illuminate at intervals the roilling,
trellised bone-jelly casserole
baking deep withing the grave—
No, not grave, I mean, hearth
Okay fine, I mean, heart
this foiled, stewed, simmering heart"
This is another piece of poetry that I carry on my head since the first read, and I've referenced it in so many of my writings too. Sometimes your house is full, you know? Full of demons. So full, in fact, that it's hard to keep everything in shape for the non-devilish visit, to cook some supper, to find a spare guest bed.
Another thing I wrote that talks about my experiences with it quite well is "Red Skies", and also includes a direct reference to "Green Beans", as well as a few other poems from the rest of "Hollow Saffron Gutter". My demons have become such a big part of me, that sometimes it feels like my real self long ago drowned under their tar, and my body is nothing but a ventriloquist dummy for them; but then my grey skies clear after a while, and I'm able to find the small flame of my foiled, stewed, simmering heart in the short darkness.
And even with all that shit, I consider myself a happy person. I don't have many friends, but I have friends. I need to take a huge pile of medications everyday, but I'm still living. I don't eat much because of my lack of appetite, but I'm still able to cook some great food. To every necessary evil in my life, there's a good reason for coping as a counterpart, and just like that I go, living, singing, screaming, running and rolling on the ground.