Shadow of the before

I feel unwell, every day, as if time had stopped passing but continued to scratch at me inside. I have a knot in my chest that won’t dissolve, a voice in my head that won’t be quiet, repeating names, images, caresses that aren’t mine. And every time, it’s as if I were living them, without being there. I know, damn if I know that before me there was a before, a story, a skin different from this one. But I can’t shake it off, this long shadow, this beast that sleeps on me and wakes up every night. It’s stronger than me. Stronger than common sense, than logic, than love too. It drains me. It digs into me. It makes me feel small, replaceable, useless. I can’t live with it. It’s a slow poison, that burns the heart and makes the body tremble. I feel unwell, really. Physically. As if the pain had teeth and bit me from the inside. And no one sees the blood. Only I do.