Evolution

         When I was younger I lived in a forest. I belonged to the trees and to the birds. My lungs were meant to absorb the dry leaves and damp moss in their entirety. My skin was perfected to achieve beautiful blooming bruises and charmingly red scratches. These were my victories.
         At that time I had developed brilliantly fierce eyes that were created specifically to capture and retain all that I saw. I once ventured out of that forest and all that I witnessed was placed deep beneath my victorious and prized exterior, into the very essence of my being. These visions and events took refuge there. They intertwined themselves one with another and buried into my core where they began to ferment and grow. They traveled upward through my spinal column and fed my dreams and ambitions until one day they reached the casing around my brain, causing it to expand and rupture. All of the ideals, these thoughts and nightmares that had been cultivated, began to pour out in a burst of darkly grotesque splendor.
         This essence of darkness trickled sluggishly down into my mouth and pooled. It squelched through my tightly clenched teeth and bubbled thickly down my chin. My eyes gleamed with a new intensity as a small amount of the goo made its way to the back of my throat and jumped down into the empty abyss of my stomach. Once there these thoughts began to reek havoc on my body.
         My bones crunched sharply as the change began. My legs lengthened and formed new joints. Joints more suitable for walking, for moving. My spine arched and snapped as the vertebrae started to shift. The spineous processes became more prominent as my skin tightened and pulled against them. My ribs expanded and my hips began to jut as my stomach hollowed out and became a deep, echoing cavern.
         My hair grew long and wild and my skin became like cheap plastic bags, sheer and sepia toned. My eyes became of one color, continuously rearranging themselves and to create fantastic illusions. My eyes eventually settled on the color of dragon fly wings. These colors were made to chase away the darkness with a power that only shimmering things possess.
         However eye color hardly ever succeeds in chasing away the demented thoughts that were now spilling more frequently from pursed and puckered lips. My body was slowly becoming poisoned and the further I ventured from out my forest the more twisted I became. I began to take pleasure in more of the secret and hidden abominations of the world, forgetting more and more of the past, of my past, as I was absorbed into this new form of living.
         My imagination and I ran away together. Into a smoke filled environment that shredded through my bronchi and caused my lungs to shrivel like drying grapes. My mental barrier was lowered further at that point and I got lost in my new self. Sanity, I had found, was a fad of the past. I walked as the living dead, forgetting and living with a new and strangely precious perspective.
         My mind whispered for me to stay awake, to fight this coma that was beginning to paralyze my entire system. It strained to help me remember the forest. To, for one moment longer, regain the memory that the moon and stars were meant to, were made to keep me company. But I had no patience for that. I had let my mind out to wander and watched it as it was kidnapped by a thought with malicious intent.
         I was once one with the trees and of the forests. I had run so that my feet brushed gently against the ground and left deep caters in their wake. I blended in with the dirt and with the rivers. In this new surrounding my feet tread heavily on the sidewalk, slowed by the traffic of persons on this pavement. I stuck out with my new skin, shined to a beige perfection, and my hair contained perfectly in its own wrappings. My clothes caught on nothing and thus stayed in one whole piece.
         I ruled over the town that I had discovered. I was their exotic queen. As the seasons changed I found myself back at the forest's edge. I saw the change overcome it, as it had always done, as it will always do. The leaves changed into the colors of blood and yellowed teeth. I smiled darkly, the liquid sludge seeped from my slightly distorted sneer. I too now was changing. shedding my previous skin for a new one, a barren one.  I smiled at my bones that decided to show themselves more now than ever, perfect for this upcoming season.
         I walked through this forest, shuffling the leaves and kicking up their rich and dank smell. My muscles ached and protested the further in I walked, they were not use to this type of movement anymore. My bones creaked for they had morphed into something more suitable for life elsewhere. These murmurings did little to sway my decisions. I ignored them and continued into the heart of the forest. I felt its energy grow. It fought my approach, my clothes and skin tearing under the needle sharp branches, my hair pulling in the thorns of the vines; however I was stronger, I was more determined. The darkness fed my ambitions and I pushed further into the dense shade of crimson and decay.
         I felt the forces push against me and laughed. The trees and forest spirits continued their war with me but it was in vain. I had quickly reached the middle of the forest and saw that it contained nothing that I longed for. I saw that I had become stronger, more important, than the mass of trees and decomposing waste material.
         What was once beautiful was now nothing more than a clustered, cluttered form of organized chaos. I had evolved to become better. I saw through the colors and shapes. I saw that the soon to be skeletal trees held no beauty or power but were pitiful creations meant only to stand at attention and pretend that their role in the universe was a noble and great one as they continued to grow larger and more capacious.
         I turned to leave, to continue my reign and dismiss this once great place, when I was sent crashing to my knees, sinking down into the underbrush. I was temporarily peeved that my jeans had been stained by the moss and muggy sick that lined the forest floor. It was then that the forest's true attack began. Leaves flew into my airways, sticking in my lungs and clustering so that I could no longer breathe. My skin began to feel tender and show its weakness as I stood up. I remembered the trophies I had carried around in my previous state, but pushed these thoughts away. I stumbled quickly out of tree line and admitted defeat of the battle but not of the war.
         I sauntered back to town, slightly hunched over with well disguised shame. To them it looked like a mighty battle had just ensued, not that my pride had almost cost me everything. To them it looked like I had won. I smiled venomously to them. I was victorious in their eyes, which was all I had ever needed. Something contradicted this, stirring in the deep recessions of my brain, but I pushed it further back. This is what I had needed. This is what I do need.  
         While celebrating my victory, my shoulders began to itch. As my nails dug into the transparently thin skin, ringlets of dermis fell from my nails reveling terrifyingly gorgeous wings that erupted from my back as if they had been spring loaded and locked there for centuries having the pressure constantly building until its breaking point at this moment. They opened in a menacingly dark manner, resembling the texture and color of falling ash. My shadow behind me grew more sinister as it stretched and twisted along side with my thoughts, which had not been contained only in my brain for quite some time. The worse these thoughts became the darker my ambiance became. I surrendered the dark essence and it burned as it poured from out my eyes, stung as it forced its way from the tips of my fingers.
         It was then that I unhinged my jaw, as a snake so often does, and spread all that I had learned and knew. I spread liquid emotion like the plague and everyone became infected. They too began to see the beautifully, dark form of reality that my warped brain had so often depicted, had so often told me about. They lost interest in the forest and began to see devastatingly haunting visions of what could be, what needs to be, what should be.