Sadness is the thing with sharp, saw like claws,
piercing your chest with small pricks of uncertainty
It's always there, perched in the dark shadow of happy thoughts.
Waiting.
Waiting for the moment to make it's reappearance,
To step off of it's pedestal and become the center of attention once again.
You don't notice it until it's unexpectedly there,
With its menacing, nightmarish smile and comforting numbness,
until he's wrapped around you in a familiar sense of a pounding heart and a shaky hand.
At that moment, he's everything to you. Your sense of safety, your fears.
While you know that he is no good for you, you follow the longingness in which he calls your name, and you fall…
Down
Down
Down….
You sink into the deep, dark shadow that this long lost friend casts.
Sinking deeper and darker into your own confining thoughts.
The thing with the piercing black eyes, and sluggish fingertips
adds his grotesque opinion to every single one of your thoughts.

Thoughts about yourself, your family, your friends, your life.
The monster has one goal, to keep you here in this drowning, stark hell that he has personally created for you.
This goes on many a days, where your mind is kept in his clutches.
It isn't until you try to swim to the surface of this underwater dungeon, that the monster starts to retreat.
The first steps of self care help you climb out of the slick, slimy tendrils that he has wrapped around you.
Every compliment that you receive cuts the monster deeper and deeper until he is so wounded that he retreats back into the deepest part of your mind.
Once he is gone, everything is well again.