I awake daily to find that another part of me has died, taken over by a foreign entity. Needless to say, this concerns and disturbs me greatly. When I look into a mirror, I see someone else’s eyes behind my eyes, staring at a face behind my face. This physical schizophrenia is creating a battle of wills that is tearing me emotionally limb from limb. This “stranger”, sleeping in the bed of my body, messing up the sheets of my soul, is giving me no rest. He is taking great pains in being a great pain.

“I can communicate and write using a computer with a sensor on my nose and a pop-up keyboard.”

This did not happen overnight. No, he began his possessive assault upon my person some many months past. He arrived, unannounced, filled with plots and plans for my demise. He began taking great pleasure in taking away my greatest pleasures. Slowly, in minute daily increments, he began to fill my legs with lead. Now, I feel as if I walk on the ocean’s floor, in one of those heavy pressurised diving suits, the weight of the world’s water pressed upon my back; my lungs straining for tiny portions of air, gasped through miles of tubing. The slightest nudge sends me hurtling into the sludge, his silent, mocking laughter echoing in the ears we share.

My arms feel as if they operate independently from my body, on another planet where the gravity has twice the pull of this planet, where even the smallest objects seem to have the mass and weight of objects much heavier. I object to being the object of this harsh torture. Its weight upon my spirit is equally crushing, bruising. These fingers that once caressed and created, now cringe and curl in a cruel parody of their former prowess.

Fortunately, there are parts …