Inspired Demons Excerpt
Silence is unbearable, the never-ending echo of complete stillness giving rise to the phantom remnants of people no longer in my life. Their voices the loudest in silent moments as they craft my own personal nightmare that I can not escape. In the stillness they live, whispering evil slings striking a pain so deep it's hard to draw in a proper breath—it's an agony that strips away the will and destroys the soul.
That's why I do it.
Inflicting physical pain on myself dulls the emotions I can not hide from—it hushes the voices of my abusers, and makes the devils inside my mind happy. They devour pain—crave it, but that's not the only reason I claw deep cuts into my arm. I need to see it—I demand a physical representation of my internal torment. Something I can honestly feel and touch, a wound that bleeds like it should. A tangible sting, raw and ugly, to show what it looks like inside because people don't believe me. I can only say I hurt so many times, but without seeing my affliction they never understand. I'm judged as they cast their skeptical glances at my confessions of suffering. The public—my family and friends don't believe in the invisible pain, it's my secret. A special burden reserved for only me.
No other shoulders are strong enough to hold this weight, I'm alone with my demons—my wonderful inspiring devils that fuel my creative world, and ravage me from the inside out. This is my curse and gift, I bare it unwillingly and the worst part...
The most tortured reality to this pain that drives me to hurt myself...
The depression... The anxiety...
The asshole mental voices in my mind are all the result of people I loved. Those I allowed close, put my trust in, and welcomed into my closed circle. They crushed me into a million pieces and rebuilt a slave shackled by mental captors.
This is not a hell crafted by some medical problem, it's not a void I slipped into due to genetics, it was done to me. Inflected over many years. My nightmares were built by the ugly side of the world, depraved and beautiful in its own twisted design. It's dark and tortured and all I know. This is how I survive, through pain and tears and violent screams of injustice, and I have all of you to thank.
© J.N. Sheats
Inspired Demons
featured in:
The Monster Unseen
A Mental Health Awareness Anthology