It took me too long to realize that not all the world is my enemy

[ID: A comic done mostly in black and white. A hound with a broken chain around its neck flees a cage and runs into two reaching hands. The hound bites one hand, drawing blood. Narration says, “When I fled my cage / I bit the hands that took me in / Because the only hand I’d ever known / was a bad one.”

The hands, now with fresh bite marks, still reach out gently to the hound. “"We’re not him.” they said / and I knew what they meant / but I didn’t understand.“

Floating in white space: "Now I understand / but the damage is done.”

A person enters a door, rolling a suitcase, saying “Hi” to two people on a couch, who look up from their newspapers and phones to say “Hey” and “Hi” back. The shadow of the person who entered the room stretches out before them– a hound’s, not a person’s. Narration: “I’m so sorry / I couldn’t help it / I couldn’t help myself.”

We see the hands of the people on the couch. Both have faded bite marks on them. “I was so blind, I forgot / that not all hands are made of iron.” End ID]

(ID by @princess-of-purple-prose)

A book salesman came to class today.

He was an old man.

He brought several art books and opened them one by one, showing the pages around, loudly talking about why each one was worth your money and you should buy it today.

I never looked at him.

It began to hurt somewhere behind my eyes.

I spent many days as a child crouching in a locked room.

When the sun went down, the room was dark, and there was always a monster in the shadows.

I ran into the same monster today.

It pestered me during class, pulling at my hair, excitedly telling me stories about things I don’t want to remember.

I told my mom about it.

She has a monster, too.

She says it might leave eventually, give or take a decade.