Buried alive

I am trapped in this shell. A shell within a shell within a shell. As if hidden in the center of an onion, an infinite number of layers thick. The light pierces through at times, but mostly it is the echoes of times long past. All that is left is a grimy window to peer through outside.

I don't know what I am like, from the outside looking in. I no longer find the mirror trustworthy, nor the words of those around me. I feel as though my listening comes through headphones, screens play images to my eyes. Showing me the world not as it is, but how it must be. I claw at my eyes and ears, hoping to get them off, but of course they are not there. This is all there is to what I see and hear.

I lie back, away from the windows. I shut my eyes and plug my ears. I have slipped one shell deeper from the world.