The Shadows

They come.

I can usually fend them off.

What’s wrong with shadows? you ask.

So many of them. It’s an infestation.

They fill your head. Fantasies abundant.

They chain you. Slave to routine.

Slave to capitalist. Slave to the slaves of money.

Slave to empty.

Illusions of power, fame, things, the Love.

The Love is secluding. Leads you to bottomless pits.

Yup- them shadows.

There are few of us. Shadows have taken so many.

Your parents. Your sister. Your friends.

Where did they go? Only the shadows know.

We can only survive. It’s like an alien invasion.

Like fantasy sci-fi, but too real.

Too real.

World is in tatters. Shadows took the government.

Poor is in tatters. Shadows took the opportunity.

Brain is in tatters. Shadows took the willingness.

Welcome to the world.

We do what we can- but shadows run everything.

For the most part, we hide. Obscure.

Shadows don’t like us. Don’t like what we do.

Don’t like the chaos, the challenge, the specialness of it.

The real us.

They infiltrate, took us, modified.

There! it fits the shadows.

This life is hard. Nearly impossible.

This life of twoness, of service, of unity.

Painful. Challenging. Lonely.

Worth it.

A life is worth living.

You’ve gotta fight. Don’t become them.

Don’t become the shadows.

I must go. They’re coming for me.

The shadows. A disease, nasty plague.

The absence of true life.

The absence of everything.

They come to corrupt.

No!

I let my guard down!

Here they come, seeping into me like a million centipedes.

Tiny feet squishing my moist insides, burrowing.

To eat my being from the inside out.

Take a good look before you go, what do you see?

I look at its swirling mass of absence.

There, staring back at me, is myself.

Run away, before they get you t-

The shadows… they came for me…

i am now a statistic

Author's Note

I wrote this poem/rant thing at midnight, when I got mad at myself for dampening my own creativity to satisfy the peers who didn’t want me writing. Or at least, that's how it started. As I got farther into it, it became more of a poem describing all the things I am angry about in general. The shadows can represent anything, but they mainly represent the things I resent. Make what you want of the shadows. ;)

Reviews

[Locke Redwyne (night sy..]

In the line "The Love is secluding" I think you might have meant "The Love is seducing"
Seclude means to hide, keep away from people, and seduce, well, you know what that means, and works better with the line after it.
The line "Poor is in tatters" doesn't convey what I think you want to convey very well, maybe try a different word or phrasing?
I would decide on one word tense for the line "They infiltrate, took us, modified." (infiltrate is present tense, took us/modified are past tense)
But it's really good, I like it

[Jay_Bluefire]

That's... dark. (25 characters)

[Peregrinator7]

yeah?
(nice, by the way)

[Kamani]

Amazing... I love this body of work❤️