I am her Mother...

It is the dead of night...

The whole world is asleep and once more, my demons loom large and menacing

So much hangs in the balance...

So much depends on my being able to breathe my way, once more, through the madness... through the desire to bring about the end of the world... through demands for blood and vengeance of the screaming, clawing banshee inside of me

The 'Nothing' beckons... promising a peace that transcends the chaos inside of me... a peace in which there exists a silence that drowns out the 'Everything' that is Life

It is silent in the world outside of my mind, save the chortling of night birds, whose song promises a sunrise that never comes.

I feel rage stirring inside of me.

For the first time in all of the years I have been listening to them, I wish them gone. Their madness does not bring me comfort tonight. No, tonight they are mocking me and I want to blow them up from the inside with my thoughts.

I want to bring the silence!

In the back of my mind, I hear the ticking of an imaginary clock...

*tick*            *tock*    *tick*            *tock*              *tick*            *tock*     *tick* *tock*

       *tick*            *tock*         *tick*            *tock*  *tick*              *tock* *tick*                *tock*

  *tick*         *tock*        *tick*           *tock*                 *tick*                  *tock*  *tick*            *tock*  

*tick*            *tock*              *tick*            *tock*     *tick* *tock*       *tick*            *tock*        

*tick*            *tock*                 *tick*            *tock*        *tick*                *tock*

                 *tick*                                             *tock*

Relentlessly, it counts out the seconds... the minutes... the hours... the days... the months...

How long have I been holding my breath for now?

How long has it been since I last saw my daughter? Heard her laugh? Touched her skin? Whispered 'I love you forever' to her in the middle of the night?

The writhing inside becomes more frantic as, incredulously, I wonder how this situation could possibly even have come to be...

Desperate plans form and then dissipate like mist as I pick them apart, looking for flaws and imperfections...

I will find a way...

I will bring her back to me...

But it will not be tonight... or tomorrow either

The pain is unbearable...

A mother's heart; ripped mercilessly apart by vultures...

A child sits among the torn fibres......... smiling??? playing in her mother's blood???

The most painful question... the only one which truly has the power to tear apart the last soft and trusting parts of me...

Is my daughter a heartless sociopath, feeding on my pain?

And there it is... the end

For how much longer I will be able to hold my breath... to calm the insanity... to wait out this hell in deep and measured silence... I honestly do not know...

The pain, I will endure... I will survive it whether I want to or not; I know this is true...

But will I slay the beast? Will I sever the necrotic limb? Will I cut off its head and bury it in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind?

Or...

Will I continue to love and nurse it back to health, watching it devour me until I simply am no longer?

The answer seems simple... but this is my child

This screaming, clawing, seemingly soul-less, cold, destructive mess... is... my... daughter

... And I am her Mother

There is no coming back from that...

I... am... her... Mother.