Freewrite #8. This vignette was written as one of a series of quick exercises designed to be both an outlet for refining vague ideas and an opportunity to improve the flow and dynamics of my writing. Form is the key, here, putting this piece on the border between poetry and prose, I'd say.

I can't.

I can't see you. I can't hear you. I can't reach you.

The chains bind me. The walls enclose me. The stone smothers me, and I am crushed beneath its weight. I cannot move. I cannot fight. I cannot remember what it felt like to be me, to be a freeman in a wide-open world. I cannot remember what it meant to have a future.

Here, I am nothing. I am alone. I am forgotten. I blend with the dust and dirt around me, indistinguishable from the darkness in which I reside. The sun does not reach me. It should not, for I am anathema to the light. I will consume it and keep it for myself. I am an empty vessel that will take the rays of the sun and bottle them up, stealing them away from you like you stole my self from me. I would keep them as tightly emprisoned as you have kept me, and you would suffer for it.

Oh, how you would suffer for it.

In the meantime, I will not forget. I will not fade. I am corrupt and horrible and eternal, a blight inherent in the nature of existence. I am everything that is putrid and worthless and refused. I may be held at bay, locked in this prison of stone and rust and dark, but the day will come when I will be free once more. The day will come when I will fill my empty soul with all the purity of your brilliant world. I will consume it all and leave you in a place as black and heavy as this prison.

There will be no chains to bind me. There will be no walls to enclose me. There will be no stone to stand between us, and I will step into the open to find you. I will know once more what it was to be me, to be a freeman in your pristine world. I will know what it means to have revenge.

I will see you. I will hear you. I will reach you.

I will.