The shadows are stealing from us. First it was food:  a half dozen glass jars of fig preserves set out to cool, the fragrant bread spread with butter and sprinkled with fine, white sugar that was to be our breakfast— The shadows grow fat and we thin.  The shadows mock and taunt us.  We cannot look in mirrors without black sheaths swaying before our faces.  I wake from sleep in searing pain— a clump of hair missing from my scalp, bruises circling both my eyes.  The shadows are abusing us. Your hands shake with distrust of the reality you thought you had a grip on.  Your lips tremble miserably when you try to speak because a shadow filched words out of the jewel-case of your mouth. The shadows are making all of the decisons. We curl tightly into our bodies hoping to not cast anymore shadows. It has come to this: an avoidance of days; dead lamps in the evening, blacked out windows for fear of our very own lives. Now we are prisoners–powerless and distraught.   

©2012 Clare L. Martin