Inheritance of Ruin

Do you hear that?
She is laughing.
The devil inside her is laughing.

I know what darkness looks like. I just pretend like I don’t see it in the mirror when I allow the thoughts to linger. Because I have vowed to prove Mother wrong and never succumb to it; that wild, venomous thing she swears is calling out my name.
But meeting him, a man fractured, struggling to hold his soul together, everything begins to unravel. He is soft-spoken like a prince, gentle as a dove, and he flushes red with a simple kiss. He is pure at heart until a shadow slip through the crack in his soul, twisting him into something else; something vile, arrogant…something I shouldn’t want as much as I do.

Every callous touch strips away something precious from me. Every filthy stroke bleeds rot into me, forces me to confront the darkness I have fought so hard to bury.

Mother is wrong.
I am not my father.
I am not a monster.
But…what if I am?