Locked in

I stare calmly out the window and watch the city slide by the bus window. My headphones in my hears but the device attached to them is silent. I sit and listen with a placid face.

Inside the cage of my chest, I feel it, scraching relentlessly to break through. Screeching in an unknown language – there are no words that conveys their meaning, yet I understand each piercing sounds. I control the flinch threatening to cross my face.

The creature beats itself against the walls, bouncing off of them in a fury that threatens to shake my entire being and I feel my muscles clench into stone in order to contain the violence. Frustration screams from the creature in the form of vibrations and furious shaking. I can tell it wants free.

Would be claws would rip my throat out and my breathing becomes shallow in a concentrated effort to give it as little room to move as possible. Maybe if it's constricted, it will stop thrashing and quiet down. But my reasoning fails. It becomes more animated in it's need to lash out and hit. I become more resolute to quiet it.

I long to give it control - to let its words become mine – to give it command over my fists. I long to throw the hissy fit that is raging inside of me. At times I believe that if I could just let it free, it would fly from my body and leave me alone, calm and once again at peace. But I know that this is an illusion, a dangerous plot the creature whispers inside my head at a volume that seems deafening.

I will have to wait it out. The reasoning tone will seep into my thoughts and over the course of the days, I will talk my creature into a state of calm. It will once again become part of my soul and we'll sleep together through the night, comforting each other.

Until then, the battle will be exhausting.

The bus stops and I gather my things to my shoulder. Stepping to the door, I drop the headphones from my ears and cheerfully thank the driver – the same as any other day. The walk to the apartment is as slow and deliberate as any other day. My creature is visible to no one but me. Somehow that comforts both of us.