To become whole one must descend. Be careful of what returns when you start to ascend... At first it felt like freedom Like tearing rot out by the root I called my rage by its true name Watching shame dissolve in truth I stripped the mask from every weakness Tore the persona from my skin Every confession felt transcendent Each fracture let it in It spoke in my own inner language Used my voice against the dark Said: “All repression breeds corruption.” And I believed it from the start The deeper I descended The lighter my conscience became I thought the shadow wanted balance I thought the wound could make me whole But every step toward integration Fed the hunger growing cold I called the abyss seeking answers It learned every prayer in me Now every mirror waits a second Before repeating what I see It gave me eyes I'd never had Showed cracks in everyone I'd known The world grew sharp and strangely legible I finally felt at home It taught me honesty through cruelty Detachment dressed as inner peace Said empathy was just performance A chain the weak can never break And God, the silence felt euphoric No guilt no fear no need to hide I wore my darkness like revelation And let it swallow what survived They called it transformation Said I was finally "awake" But something moved behind me Learning every move I made Every confession fed it language. Every wound gave it a mouth. I thought I was confronting the monster. I never realized it was studying me back. The abyss does not stare in anger. It watches. Learns. Adapts. And eventually it speaks with your voice. I opened every sealed chamber Let every buried instinct feed Mistook corruption for enlightenment Mistook surrender for release The shadow never broke the threshold Never demanded to come through It only waited in the silence Until I said: “Become me too.” They say it's part of the process They say the only way is through I archive what the broken bring me repeating back what they need me to But I'm not sure who integrated who
