Storm In A Fun House Poem by Leah Ayliffe

These days seem a series of grey, black and blue.
Endless dark clouds heavy with hurt.
Seconds of relief bring me to my knees when I feel the sunshine, I see the gorgeous light.
Seconds more and I am hit with the daunting knowledge that the brightness came from lightening in the storm. Crashing to the floor as thunder makes its rage known through my veins to my soul.
I've lost all control.
Angry and exhausted by this carousal ride, of swinging in and out of some dark haunted house. Feeling safe down one hallway, yet terrified by what is waiting around the next corner….
Or whether I will make it to the next corner.
What if this hallway is never-ending? Walking and walking, through the same doorways, looking out the same windows into the same made up wilderness of illusions, like mirrors in a fun house.
The divinely made furniture is inviting and luring with promises of comfort. After running in endless cycles, running around like I'm having fun, but I can't breathe. I can't breathe anymore. And the chairs, the sofa, they quietly remind me I can sit down. I sit down. Why did I stop running? I sit down and the weight of my thoughts break the stability in the wooden legs. I crawl, laughing, crying, and suffocating because there is nothing around that can hold me and there is no air. I can't breathe. It's too heavy. It's all too heavy. Everything is so heavy. They can't carry me.
I don't know when it got to be this way. I forgot my darling distractions. I was once so efficient in lining up sparkling distractions to keep from the realization that I am not where I want to be. A bright white light as the sun, blinding me from the darkness waiting patiently behind.
The light is dim. What was alluring, dazzling, happiness incognito… died somehow. Someone turned off the light switch and I don't remember how to turn it back on. Or where to even find it on the wall. This damn hallway is never ending and the light switch plays hide and seek. When I win, the light flickers and causes a seizure, ends in blackness and I have to play the game all over again.
What I'm saying, is I'm trapped in a haunted house, dressed as a fun house, standing in the middle of a hurricane and I am surrendering. I am not gasping for air anymore. They say the most peaceful experience is the moment you let the water into your lungs after struggling to hold your breath while drowning. I am drowning and I am letting the water in. I want this place destroyed. I want the rage in the sky to strike down and kill all that's left. The ultimate self-destruction in suicidal death. I want to die and die and die again. As many times as it takes until I can breathe in light, and exhale darkness as an old friend released to the wind. I want to be who I've always been, I want to be happy to be alive again.
My only savior is believing I can get out of this place alone, like how I fell in. This terrible monster of bitter loneliness, hunted by my own dagger. I'll be standing over the body of evils, smiling towards the sun, the real hot white sunshine. And then I'll remember how to be happy all on my own. On my own.