Author's Note: This may be under poetry, but really it's more of a stream-of-consciousness piece that I honestly spent more time on than I should, but less than I would have liked. This semester I got involved in research and have been given the amazing opportunity to do some of my own. But that means I've spent the vast majority of my time in the lab, doing lab related work, or panicking because I was in the lab when I needed to be studying for everything else. This is a little something that's been racketing around in my head and took relatively less time to work out than the next chapter of Destiny or the prologues to the next works I have in mind. I love science, but I too need a little artistic expression and would really rather not give up writing fiction in exchange for writing scholarly articles. So here you go, a little something to let you all know I still live and try to write. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I do own neither Digimon nor Kouichi. I intend no copyright infringement and am making no money, so please not to ruin my budding adult life with lawsuits.

What am I doing here?

What was I looking for in this odd place?

I knew just a moment ago,

But… I've forgotten.

Slowly, it seems, I've forgotten almost everything.

I have this pain in my chest

A hurt from before

That lets me know there is a before

Things were not always as they are.

I didn't always have this bitterness in my heart

Nor did these tears always burn my eyes.

I sense there was beauty then

And a happiness of sorts.

A world out there filled with naïve optimism

Now shattered by that disaster I can't seem to recall

This anger and hatred are the result.

They festered in my mind until I couldn't-

Can't

Take it any more

That must have been when I let the Darkness in.

I know it hasn't always been here

A part of me still knows this isn't right

But I accepted power

Without understanding the price

Now here I am in the never ending

All consuming

Night

It's surrounding me

Inside me

Sometimes I think it is me.

Sometimes I think it's always been me.

I know that's not true;

There was a me before this,

But he's not me now.

Which of us is the original and which the shadow?

There's a difference

I know that much.

I believe that much…

There has to be a difference.

These feelings I have

Regret, despair, grief,

They're what happen when something breaks

Fragments of a self I can no longer recall

What's this place doing to me?

What have I sacrificed to be here?

I came for a reason

I was following a dream

Or a nightmare

Or a need for reality.

Now there is only black

And a quickly fading memory.

What is this monster called Fate?

And what does it want from me?

Things began so simply

So innocently

How did I become so lost?

The hopes I followed here

I can't say I remember them

Only that they existed once-

Continue to exist is some magic box I've forgotten how to open

If I wanted to, if I tried, I have no doubt I could

But I'm scared of what I might find

Terrified of the horrible pain that drove me to this

Madness.

So I sit back and let the darkness control me

It was never my intention to do so; but then again,

It was never my intention to meet him.

I don't know who he is

Or what he wants with me.

Yet as time passes,

It seems he's all I know.

He whispers in my head

Things I know shouldn't make sense but do

I know he finds this all quite funny

I know I'm giving him exactly what he wants

And I know what he wants is bad.

I accepted- no, accept, his offer anyway

At first it seemed like I shouldn't

In those first few moments I thought about fighting

Now I wonder why.

As nervous as the darkness makes me

I know it sooths my pain

It fills the hole left by that demon called Truth

Soon I won't know there was a hole

Or a Truth

Or a me

All will be lost in this endless black.

He wants me to embrace that

Yet it seems the best I can do is accept

Resign myself to its power

And wallow in doubts

I know it's wrong

I know it's pathetic

Yet as much as I know I asked for this

I feel there's a part of me that didn't want it

A part of me that had a simple, beautiful, incorruptible dream

A dream I'm supposed to forget.

I don't want to

It happens anyway

As time passes in this strange world it seems more and more

Inevitable

I have this terrible fear that I'm loosing something,

Something really important.

And the longer I'm here the less I remember

What it is

One emptiness replaces another

Purpose mutates

Hunger overcomes

A new self displaces the old

As the eternal darkness,

Both grotesque and alluring,

Seeps into the soul

I don't know to fight it

Or if I can

Or if I want to

I no longer know myself

Or my own desires

My will is lost

And soon I won't even remember I ever had one.