The disease of the lost self

1. What are you talking about, I laugh, holding incredulity up like a shield and a shroud, of course I know who I am. I am confident as a declaration. My nose should have touched the floor.

2. With pride and certainty, like a child who has mastered a difficult skill, I name my feelings: This is bitterness and resentment. See, I know myself. Strange, then, how these feelings cry louder and louder. I named them and banished them, didn’t I?, I mutter to myself confused as a frown, safe in my ward circle, naming and banishing and kicking these demons with all my might. Strange then, the wounds that appear on me. The wounds that mirror and map the wounds I inflict. I examine them in confusion, turning around and around, twisting like a contortionist. Must have gotten them from the demons, I shrug.

3. I am lost and invisible under years of practiced burying. I shovel soil on top of myself, laughing, blithe, and blind. Of course I matter, I crow, of course I have a self!

4. When my needs show themselves and knock on my door, I take one look at them and slam the door closed, shuddering. I hurriedly turn on the TV and settle in. The cries of help outside the door barely murmur under the hilarious laugh tracks from the screen.

5. I pour all my energy into creating weapons to defend myself vigorously against myself. Vulnerability wears a different face, shame. I kick and spear and slice at it. Loneliness wears a different face, jealousy. I dive towards it with a sword. Grief wears a different face, bitterness. I load a cannon and ignore the tears leaking from my eyes.

6. Anger stomps towards me with feet like flame. The ground is charred in its wake. Kill or be killed, right? I try to smother it and do not understand why I, too, start to gasp for air. How strange that, as time drips by, I slowly asphyxiate alongside anger.

7. The war is changing. The demons combine and clamor and clamber. In a moment of ennui, I stop. Drop my weapons. Is this the end? But – no – the voices speak: Why was no one there for me? Why did no one protect me? Why did I have to shoulder the burden of this war alone? Why was I alone? I weep startled tears. They scald and burn like salt in a wound. My armor has been shoved aside and my enduring, wounded heart has been revealed. It is an ugly sight. The years of sympathetic violence have left it scarred, festering and oozing.

8. The secret is up. It is time to tear through the illusion. This war was never real. These demons were never alive. These weapons were never needed. It was all a lie, an elaborate and orchestrated conspiracy. The truth that was hidden from me is this: listen closely – soundless as a heartbreak stifled by the sounds of war is the cry for help. Perhaps I have finally found that which I have lost.