From a child you trust,
Friends family neighbors,
You trust.
Until you realize some people are lying,
They say mean things
To you, to your sisters
They lie
So you block them out
Their words, their sayings,
Like it means nothing.
But you still trust,
The truth speakers
Every word they speak must be true
Has to be true
To counteract the liars

Until one day they crack
They scream and yell and lie
But that lie must be true
Has to be true
To counteract the liars
But it does not counteract
It verifies.
Those words hit the Achilles heel of man
The world crumbles down
And you know it will never be the same

The voice starts.
Quiet, at first,
Growing louder by the moment
And no matter how hard you try, lie
It will not go away.

It eats at you,
Slowly, at first,
Until a part of you is missing,
A part necessary for life,
To move on
“You are not good enough”
The voice inside says so
It knows best
It is always with you
It grows louder
People compliment you
But they do not know you
The voice does.
You see your flaws
To correct them you try to be someone else
It does not work.
The voice leads to darkness.
You try things
New, dangerous things
Not eating, cutting, porn perhaps
It starts an addiction.
The empty feeling lessens for a while in the act
But comes back stronger, stronger,
Until it is life.
You try to quit
But how?
Yet no one knows what is happening
They are blind.
But you know.
You and the voice.
The voice that drowns out the world
That takes the happy thoughts away.
You cannot laugh.
You pretend
You become the best actor in the world,
But no one knows.
No one suspects.
You are broken, dead inside.

Then the worst thought off all comes- Death.
“What if I die? Life will be easier, happier for the others.”
You may try it. Few succeed.

In the midst of the first attempt with the voice pounding through your head,
Suddenly, oh so suddenly,
There is a new voice,
A calm voice,
“Stop.”
You pause. It has power.
“You are good.”
It says like it knows,
Like it knows better than the old voice,
The true voice.
But- you can’t help to stop.
What if it is right? What if this is a mistake?
So you stop—for now.

But the old voice, the dark voice returns.
Why breathe? Why think? It is pointless. Life is pointless!

You try again. The second attempt.
With all the hatred of the world beemed at you
At your soul!
You are ready. This is it.
“Stop.”
Louder than last time.
You think no. You continue.
“Please Stop.” So loud the dark voice seems scared.
But it cannot be scared
It is the truth
Or is it?
The calm voice makes you think again.
Think of when you were little,
  Arrogant, but happy.
What did you do?

Pray.
You drop to your knees not knowing what to do but just speaking,
Speaking,
The words spill out with tear and pain and anguish
But the hole is filling up.
The dark is fading.
You feel whole.
For the first time since God knows how long
You feel whole.
Praying is your new addiction.
It keeps the dark voice quiet,
Quiet, but it is still there.
It will never go away.
You may forget and it may slip from your body only to return a minute later.
But it was one minute.
One minute of joy.
One minute of peace.
One minute more than in the past few years.
One happy, thankful, sacred minute.

You know your job. Stop the voice.
Do not let it spread to others.
Let the joy, the calm voice sing through you.
That is your job.
It is hard,
Dangerous even,
But you must succeed,
Have to succeed.
  For others.
  For man.