Two steps forward

 *edited, reupload

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I am tired of always taking two steps forward. Two steps in human time, but an endless adventure in my mind.
Wait—an adventure? I should rather call it a nightmare.
It's always a nightmare: no bright sunlight, no happy ending, no way out. Only frightening fights against enemies I don’t recognize—enemies with unknown faces, but somehow familiar, without bodies, yet surrounded by a threatening aura I am always aware of.
I can’t stop this two-steps-forward thing. It happens automatically; it’s pre-installed. No matter what I dream about, it always ends in a terrible outcome. It turns me into a statue, an image of myself that has nothing to do with me, yet at the same time I know this is actually me.
No more cheating. No more hiding. I have to take a look at myself. But it’s more of a blink, a furtive glance.
I’m scared to the bone when I see myself, and I can barely look at myself—can’t look into my own damn eyes.
It hurts. That’s it.
I don’t know why. It just hurts, and I try to avoid what hurts—isn’t that human?
People will hurt you sooner or later. Always.
From the beginning until now, I’ve never experienced it any other way.
To avoid this, and because I can’t always avoid people, I take these two steps forward—this endless nightmare in my head—to prepare myself, to protect myself.
But surprise. It hurts anyway.
They do it easily, as if it were human nature to hurt each other in countless ways.
In creative ways.
Yet I can’t stop taking these unknown roads in my head, following them in my dreams, in my thoughts, day and night.
Maybe one day I’ll find an answer to a question I neither asked nor wanted to experience, but need to know in order to survive.
Maybe then I can finally find myself in the mirror, open my eyes again, and look at myself without hesitation, without fear.

So what conclusion do we come to?
Maybe that I am my own enemy—because in the end, I am also one of those wicked human beings, no matter how many steps forward I take.-Jane