husk
There is something inside me. For days I have felt it moving, shifting, growing. I can feel it slowly making its way up the inside of my rib-cage, then tiny hands are clawing at the walls of my throat. I can't breathe. I fall to the ground gagging and coughing. Now it fills my mouth, forcing my jaws open until they crack with the strain. It reaches with its hands and pushes back the corners of my mouth to heave itself out. It falls to the floor and turns to stare at me. I can see its eyes, feral and strange. I cannot move. I am just a husk, shed like old skin.
At night it hangs me in the wardrobe. The dark closes in around me. I am scared of the moths that tear at my fabric and eat holes in my skin. Every morning it comes to the wardrobe and pulls me on like an old coat, fastening my chest with a silver button. It uses me to walk through the world unseen. It uses my smile and my hands, spreading lies and truth, compliments and betrayal. I cannot stop it. Its words are my words, its voice is my voice. When it returns to the room it undoes the silver button and I fall to the ground, discarded. It stands over me, its red skin gleaming in the cold light from the street lamp outside. Then it picks me up, returns me to the wardrobe and closes the door.
The moths are coming. I can hear their tiny wings.
