I count my steps. One. two..three... four….five….. I count my breaths. In. Out.One.two..three… With my head hung heavily, I shuffle down the hallway. Avert your eyes, keep your palms in, hunch those shoulders. Now you’re getting it. There are square tiles on the floor. One foot by one foot boxes. What are they hiding? What lies beneath my rubber soled feet? Dead bodies. They squirm in earthen tombs, still alive! They call out! My fingers bleeding as I attempt to shatter those agonizing blocks. I can’t help them. I am too weak. My hands trail soporifically, painting sunscapes with my warm and viscous blood. Strong hands life me skyward and I am whisked away. Back to my room. Back to my cage. You must learn to behave.

Back in my container I can think clearly. I retain some semblance of sanity, and I allow myself to become complacent. It is safe here. My name is Alec. I am seventeen years old. I want to kill. To murder. To hold someone’s existence in my hands and be able to decide their fate. They tell me I am bad for wanting this control but how are they any different? They want to medicate me. To control my actions. To hold my life in their sweaty palms and flick me on the snout when I misbehave. I was in love, once. She wasn’t beautiful, or sexy, or flirtatious. She was simple and exquisite and effervescent. Yes, I claimed her life. I remember looking into the endless pools of her eyes and drinking in her profound sadness. I lapped up her despondency like a dying puppy and delivered her into a life of freedom. She is the reason I am here.

I help those who need my help. And for that I am imprisoned. The suicidal people out there in the outside world look to me because they are not secure enough in themselves to take what they want. They join blogs and write songs and look for the attention of others. I want to kill. They want to die. I am a societal necessity. Those bodies beneath my feet are still breathing and need my services more than anyone else. I want quiet. They want to be silenced. We were meant to be together.

You think I am a sick individual. You are thanking the good Lord that I am safely packaged away-- Hermetically sealed in some exotic crypt that you never have to look at. But here’s the clincher. My cage is your soul. My enclosed pen is your brain. I am the mob mentality and the OCD and the schizophrenia. You keep me here, contained, and walk around pretending that you don’t know me. But you do. You take me out and toy with me before returning me to the deepest recesses of your being.

So here I stay, for the time being. Locked in your cells and silently pacing. I am within you, whether you care to recognize my existence or deny it. I am the hate. I am the passion. I am the violence. And I cannot be destroyed.