They writhe, curling their cylindrical bodies around beating veins and brittle bones.
They are my audience, the leeches inside – letting my blood, drinking it down.
They swallow imagination and remind my swollen heart that the blood it offers is but a feast for their bodies.
They grew after I consumed them at a young age, the leeches – they hide in promises, in dreams…in wellness magazines and corporate presentations.
They latch to us, consuming through our own endless consumerism. Some say we are already born with the larvae inside us…primed and conditioned to devour even our own dreams as age corrodes our whimsy and intrinsic magic.
They say the leeches eat this magic too, but I know that the humans themselves offer up this energy – to be rid of it severs one from the voice of their spirit, the voice that bestows them with the challenge of creation rather than the ease of consumption.
This is why I spend my mornings ripping them from my chest, if my will permits – black and red pour, toxins bubbles, and the leeches gnash their many teeth.
This is my cleansing – my hands grasping around their blood soaked bodies, pulling. Consecrating fire, my human magic still daring to live, ignites into indigos and I burn them away – one by one, they become ash.
And I return to the living as others force me to swallow more writhing leeches with dull eyes and carefree smiles.
They don’t even know they’re doing it – it’s just another day to them, another day filled with addicting noise, void of feeling.
And that is what we’ve said is okay – many engage in willing consumption, blood loss can sometimes leave a pleasant numbness behind the eyes and skull…masking the loss inside.
The numbness…now that can be intoxicating – just give up that blood and magic and you’re as right as rain.
It’s so comfortable to wander around, like all else, light-headed, buzzing, high but broken – there’s a reason we all do it.
Oddly easy, to be willingly drained – if you can turn off the part inside you that’s screaming, it’s one of the easiest things in the world.
