Into the Dark

by Dana Isaly

I’m the girl you see bringing a book with her to social events because I would rather be reading, and because I need something to distract myself from my social anxiety.

Sometimes it feels like my thoughts control me and not the other way around.

Where she is luminous and golden, I am murky and sinister. I will soak up her brilliant light like a black hole, and I can’t even be sorry about it. She will feed every dark, muddled part of my soul like the most delicious fruit. I will eat her whole, seeds and juices and rind, like a starving man gone mad.

“Everything is a story in the end.”