Fighting Voices

Malevolent voices command that I kill! I’m surrounded by harsh, condescending and abusive random words, swirling, twirling. You’re worthless, they say, you’re going to Hell. People are spying on me, reading my thoughts. Hammering and pummeling, they urge me to hurt myself or others with complete abandon. I can’t block the whispers to kill my mother. She is destroying my soul, I have to kill her to get rid of her threat.

Crowds of people scream at me, resounding with power as negative thoughts filter into my skin, disabling my brain and changing my behavior. I can’t fight the darkness; genes inside my bones strike blows as delusions surround me, urging violent acts. I inhale the fog of paranoia, engendering bitter resentment. My thinking is racing around me in circles as my speech becomes incoherent. I can’t talk, I can’t talk! I can’t live with the demons so must hide in my mean streets. I can’t make sense and walk, walk, walk in circles. I’m emotionally flat until the voices overcome me and tell me what I must do.

Eat this sandwich, the sympathetic girl offers as I twist her words around trying to sort out her motives. The food is poison. Kill her! Kill her! Black clouds flail all around, discord drumming, jarring, rasping, overcoming my mind. I can smell and feel the evil emanating, hallucinating my fear, knowing she means me harm.

I jump to my feet and grab her by her pulsing neck, squeeze until the threat oozes out. A few sighs of this she-devil is all that I hear, as her malicious presence ceases to exist. I have done what you said, I tell the voices. I have erased her menace. She is my mother in another form.

Why are people in uniforms surrounding me? It was my imagination, not real. I tell myself this, over and over, mowing down my doubts. I convince myself with the incessant chorus of voices, chanting, ranting, yelling, do it again, bane of my life, but guiding me onward.