Lying on my warm, cocoon-like bed, buried in what seems like a hundred blankets, it seems the only light in the room is coming from the luminous screen of the phone in my hand. Suddenly, as if I've been possessed, I just up and flick the light switch on, flooding the small bedroom with blinding brightness. I begin to search the room frantically for pen and paper. The Words are taking over again.

One second, the paper is crisp, white, and fresh. The next, words are streaming out of my pen like an endless black waterfall, staining the page black as night. There's no stopping them now, The Words have taken over my body and my mind. They'll keep me in their tight chokehold grip until every last line on the page is filled with their chilling presence.

I'm in a robotic-like daze, moving mechanically. My hand seems to be moving all on its own, line after line after line streaming out of the tip of my pen like water out of an overflowing sink. Then it's blank, like a chalkboard that someone snuck up and quickly wiped clean of all evidence that their once were words there. My brain is empty, The Words are gone, I have no thoughts whatsoever.

There's a sharp pounding in my brain as if I've been shot. I'm waiting for the aftershock, which I know will be here sooner or later. I search my brain, trying to find that last line without the help of The Words. My only wish is to avoid their presence altogether. They drain all the life and energy out of me. I search through my empty brain as if it were a dirty room, an organized mess. I can't find anything even though I know it was here before. Then I freeze.

Words are flying behind my eyes at the speed of light... They're back. This is the aftershock. Words begin to put themselves together like pieces of a puzzle right before my eyes as my robotic hand copies them down onto the page relentlessly. Everything begins to get blurry and I can almost feel my head spinning around in circles. The hairs on my neck and arms are standing on end. I'm sweating and I can't breathe. Then everything is black. A deep, endless darkness; empty and lonely. This is why I wish to avoid the aftershock.

When I wake up from what felt like a year long sleep, there's hot, blinding sunlight pouring through the small window onto my face. The light had been turned off and the now finished poem tucked neatly into the blue folder, crammed full of many other black stained pages, sitting on the mahogany table beside my bed. My head is pounding and my eye sight blurry. This is the mark The Words leave when they are finished. Confusion, emptiness, and a terrible pounding in my head. They always come and go at random. Interrupting my life as they please. I never know when to expec…

Everything's blank. It's dark again. They're back.