Night is always a paradox for me. The day is filled with masks, I’m never me. The night is the only time I feel close, but not exactly, myself.

But the night is also when the nightmares come out. Demons and monsters from my past, my self included, terrorizing me. Flesh ripped from bone, and skulls crushed with stone.

I’ve had nightmares for as long as I can remember. Certainly I’ve had trauma in my life, terrible things no one should have to suffer, and they all play parts in my nightmares now, but my nightmares started even before then, when I was 3.

I’ve never told anyone exactly what those dreams were, and I expect I never will. To be honest, it would probably seem silly now, but to a 3 year old, it was terrifying.

Maybe I was wired wrong from the beginning. Who knows. Hell, if I go more than a week without them I feel… off. As if something is missing. They have become, no, they have always been a part of me.

Still, I hate them. I nightmare more nights than I don’t, and over the years have resisted sleep more and more. The only time I get to sleep peacefully is when I’m drunk, or when the sun is out, as if it were a Devine flashlight scaring the demons away.

So… The night. The only time I feel something close to the real me, but also the time that my demons get to feast on me. I sometimes wonder what happens when there is nothing left of me for them to devour.

The paradox of the night. My savior, my prison. My paradox.