Dying to Self

My eyes fight me as I pry them open from the night’s sleep. The indirect light doesn’t help, it makes me want to keep my eyes shut. I rub them to dispose of what keeps them closed. I sit up, stirring the blood throughout my body. My head hung low, elbows on my knees as I sat on my bed’s edge. Now the hard part.
​
“We should go back to sleep.” It was like looking in a mirror as my duplicate stood in front of me. He wasn’t a twin but was literally me. That was the other odd part, every morning I was talking to myself.
 
“We aren’t going back to bed,” I said getting bored of this fight every morning. 

“But we are tired.” It was annoying that he used the pronoun we. I am, of course, tired. It was not a good night’s sleep, but that will go away as I wake. But the bed is so comfortable. 

“Then let’s just skip the meeting,” he suggested. I knew I would have this thought in the morning. I had it before bed. The meeting was with a close friend about something I did not want to talk about, again. I know his stance and he knows mine. I don’t want to have this conversation.

“That’s why we shouldn’t go. It’s pointless.” Sometimes I am surprised that he can read my thoughts. 

“No. I have to go.” Ugh. With that, I lunge at myself but he steps back knowing what is coming. I try to grab his arm. My arm? But he slaps my arm aside. I keep advancing never retreating. This must be done. I don’t know how he gets out but I am tired of this struggle, every day. As he steps back I thrust another hand for a grapple and I entangle my leg with his front leg. No longer being able to retreat smoothly he slows just enough for me to grab his arm that attempts to gain balance. 

“Don’t do this,” he protests.

“You deceive and manipulate, I can’t have your evil within me.” There is a cage at the end of the room that I push the two of us towards: he, my evil desires, flails for freedom. Once we are at the entrance of the cage I feel a presence behind me, I feel its wrath and aid to give a final push of my fleshly self into the cage. Right before the final push, I see a slight smirk on his face. He twists and breaks my grasp, throwing me into the cage and locking it. The presence, this time, wasn’t for my aid but his. I failed to ensure my power came from God, now people will suffer, I will not meet my friend and I will only care for what I want – it is not what we humans were meant to be.