Drowning

I’m drowning.

I’m not drowning in water. I’m drowning in the taunts and torments of my inner demon. My mind, my very refuge, no longer belongs to me. But no one notices. I just put on a fake smile and pretend to listen or watch or whatever it is they want me to do this time. Everyone thinks I’m just fine. Maybe a little strange, but fine.

I’m sick.

Innocence is something I barely remember. I’m not normal, I’m not okay. And no one can tell. Don’t they ever see me leaving? Day in and day out, I’ve been able to leave at any hour, and return at any hour. But nobody asks me where I was or what I was doing. I could just walk out and never return, just throw myself off some goddamn skyscraper – and I don’t think that they’ll ever notice, until someone finds my cold, bloody body and tells them, "Hey did you know about that freak? He kicked the bucket." Yeah, I can already hear it.

I’m dead.

Maybe I look fine on the outside but, on the inside, it’s another story. There, I’m numb and cold. Just to deafen his mocking. Just to make him shut up. Even if for just a minute. But it doesn’t work. He’s in my mind, he knows all my weaknesses. It doesn’t matter if I try to block him out with all my strength. It doesn’t take much effort for him to tear up my mind, read my every fucking thought, know my every mood, see every single goddamn memory. It causes more pain than any beating I’ve ever had, and he knows it. And it makes him feel good.

I’m changing.

I remember when we first met: he seemed rather odd and maybe a little ecccentric but otherwise okay. Now, I wish I died when he came. He controls me like a puppet, and I can’t stop him. I just can't fight it. Though I'm strong physically, I'm just too weak mentally to do a single damn thing about him. He has the power to fill my head with his thoughts, change my feelings, and make it so subtle I don’t even notice. But there is a difference. It’s changed love into hate, reason into insanity, and kindness into wickedness. Sometimes, I’ll look in the mirror and see his face instead of mine. It scares me, more than anything. I’m no longer the optimistic happy-go-lucky kid I once was. I think about death a lot. I can’t cry anymore, and every emotion but anger and hatred is dulled or gone. But no one sees the changes. No one cares. Life goes on.

It’s ironic, how one who has saved so many others can’t even save himself from his own death.

I’m drowning.