Monster

She shrugs slightly, wiggles her shoulders. The dark cloud that settles on them shifts ever so slightly, then returns to solemnly slump again on her back. She sighs but lets it go, for there's little to be done about it.  It has been there for ages.
At first, it was a new and intriguing (but entirely unwelcome!) visitor that crept onto her back, piece by piece, clinging with careful claws closely catching at her skin. She barely noticed at first.
But.
When she turned her head to look back on it she found it had changed, quite deviously, quite swiftly, into a monster.
A dark, dank, dirty mass of filth and muck and sin. And it would not let go.
She tried a little to unhinge it. It clung to her like mud on a little boy. No matter how often she thought she'd rid herself of it, it would appear again and again in the most unsavory places. And the guilt that came with it, oh that was the worst. That guilt that pierced like a mother's tears, edged into your soul.
Get off, she murmurs. But it's half-heartedly. It's always half-heartedly these days. Honestly, deep down, truthfully, bare-your-heart honestly...she doesn't want it to go.
It's too comforting. Its familiarity and the satisfaction it brings seems to temporarily fill the hole in her heart that should cry out to Jesus. And the monster whispers that it's the only thing that can tenderly caress her, kiss her, woo her soft and sweet.
It's not hurting anyone, she reasons.
Blood though. Red, thick, hot. Blood dripping from the wounds. Her wounds. Monster inflicted wounds. Chunks of her, gorged upon by sin.
It's reached a point where it can no longer be secret, no longer be silent, no longer kill her gently.
This thing that has clung on for so long must be detached. Painfully pulling its barbs out of her skin, she must kick it to the curb and cling to the only one that promises restitution, revival, righteousness.
Take it, she cries to Him who hears. There can no longer be an apathetic attitude of indifference.
There is no more time for that.