The devils we carry with us are far worse than any devil that walks the streets. I carry one with me that really wishes I would die. This dying of which I speak is not a suicide ideation—I know that mind trip and this is not it. Thoughts of suicide, as I’ve known them, are much more gut wrenching and peace producing; they come from the desperation that death is better than “this.”
The blackness that seeps into all my corners is focused completely on self-destruction. It wants to destroy me. Though as I write that, knowing that there is no “I,” my mind cannot help but wonder who wants to destroy who. She is rabidly angry with my life. She resents all of my responsibilities. She hates my success. She does not want me to be without her, and as I move farther away from being her victim, the more angry she becomes. Today her venom was so spiteful, and the beatings so brutal that I actually prayed.
Tears come as I recall this day. There was a war, though I do not know if I lost, or if I simply made it through to the forest at the edge of the battlefield. Either way, as the sun set on the carnage, I realized the power of this piece of conditioning; I was able to watch it as the light flowed into night; I saw the wickedness and the spite in a way I’d never seen it before. I know the enemy better, but she is still me when the battle horns blow. See, when the dragons come to take me away, I cannot remember that I’m in a fairy tale, and that all I need to do to stop the story is to step-out, close the book, and walk down to the corner for some tea.
