by Lila Talic
He used to come to see me before I slept,
I used to be afraid of him.
Paralyzed,
I would never look at him.
I was too scared,
Petrified,
To see what was trying to suffocate me,
Why couldn’t I move?
I would will myself in my head:
Move your arms!
Move your feet!
MOVE!
Scream!
But nothing would escape my vocal cords,
It was if the entire world stopped.
In this dead silence
I could hear him breathing …
Growling ….
I could feel my heart pounding in the mattress,
The sweat dripping onto my pillow,
I often wondered – was I going crazy?
Until a sleepover at a girlfriend’s house.
And she asked me,
“Did you bring someone with you last night?”
I was confused by this.
I would never bring someone to her house.
She then said,
“Someone was sleeping next to you last night.
It looked like a man was sleeping with you.
I had to pull the covers back to see
Just to find you alone.”
That’s when I realized
I was sleeping with my demon.
And fear turned into curiosity…
What if I stopped being afraid
And instead became curious about this beast?
Welcoming his presence …
Needing him,
Wanting him,
Welcome the darkness.
Then things started to shift.
I started to learn from him,
Paying attention to my inner voice.
Intuition.
Gut feeling.
Journaling when he would come.
What was going on in my life?
How was I feeling?
Depressed?
Anxious?
Happy?
Sad?
Nervous?
In pain?
Heartbroken?
I was feeling all of those things,
All at once.
Years of shoving and shoving
Down deep down…
The more I shoved
The more he came to see me.
Every night,
Every second night,
Feeding off of my emotional shit,
Laughing at me.
All the while trying to suffocate me.
Growing stronger,
Bigger,
More powerful.
I can’t say that he’s gone for good
But over the years
The inner work –
The hard work,
The fucking not-so-nice work,
The letting go and not so much holding on –
Has helped.
He’s always going to be waiting for me.
For those times I am not standing in the light.
The times I’m in the grey area.
But I now know that even in the dark
You don’t have to be scared.
Even if you’re a slacker like me
And it takes TIME to do the work
It’s OK.
Sometimes letting your demon sleep with you
Is safe
And comfortable.
Expected …
Warm …
Is just a soft whisper …
Letting you know you’re a goddess in training.
Maybe you’re a dark goddess or a light goddess,
Demons pick you for a reason.
And sometimes it’s just to wake you up
And to bring you home
Remember?
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