circa 2018 Matthew P. Haubert
Self:
This blank paper tortures me—
the yelling, the screaming of my name.
It says to me: Write. Write.
The Voices:
You told yourself you have something to say?
Dare I ask—what? Who?
Who are you?
What is so important, so magnificent, so beautiful about your mind
that you feel this desire to write,
to compose thoughts to be forever remembered,
forever inked and established on this paper?
Who are you to take my life—
my only, my only one moment in time to live
before I am forever marked till the end of time?
Self:
You are right.
All this time, these thoughts and endless moments I dream—
they’re nothing.
Nothing but a blip in time.
Something no one will ever read,
no one will ever truly understand but myself.
Maybe.
This is why I bear these pains, these thoughts,
these endless conversations that lead nowhere.
The reason is no reason at all—
just my insanity, which no one can comprehend.
No one but the person who writes these words themselves.
The Voices:
Then why do you waste my time writing on me,
thinking these grand thoughts of happiness,
thoughts of a normal existence in this world?
Why do you dream of these things,
dream of a normal life when you know
it will never become what you want?
Do you not realize—I am you.
I am the other voice inside.
I know your fears, your agony of being alone,
unaccepted, crying, with no one to understand.
I hear it all and am here to ease your pain.
You’re not different.
You’re not exceptional.
You’re not talented.
You’re not destined for mastery to change the world,
to write a masterpiece like you dream every day.
I know—but accept it’s not real.
Your fantasies are as real as me,
as real as the pen moving on this paper as you watch
and realize that maybe your delusions and fantasies
are all made up.
I feel it now because I am you—
the tears forming on the inside of your chest.
You are realizing you are not one in a billion,
just another random person in this world,
just another memory destined to fade.
Self:
I do not believe.
I can’t comprehend how this can be remotely true.
You say this, and I know you are part of me,
but can you not see the happiness on the other side?
These can’t be delusions—
they are the future, the real timeline of my life.
They are true. They must be true. They have to be.
Without them, what am I?
I understand where you come from,
I put myself on this grand pedestal,
but it’s my destiny.
I will change the world with my music, my art, my writings.
God, I am getting so excited thinking about it—
you can’t deny it.
Everyone amazed at how talented and artistic I am,
how amazing my pieces are.
I should do it for a living.
For God’s sake, I’ve made people cry with my heart.
The Voices:
I know. I was there. I was part of it.
And when everything comes together, it is a spectacular scene.
But when does it come together—
once a week? A month?
Hell, now it’s birthdays.
You get that spark of dazzling life once every year, if that.
It makes you feel alive, normal, sane—
something you truly enjoy.
But these moments are not always there.
They are becoming less and less.
The more these moments of clarity, happiness,
the reason you tell yourself you live each day—
when they do not come, you grow more and more insane.
Self:
No, this isn’t true.
I try constantly to do what I need to do to achieve my goals.
They consume me, my whole life—
The Voices:
Yes, they do consume you.
But the ideas, the things you love are now your burdens,
the weights that cannot be lifted.
Remember when you were young—
how you would play your instruments for hours,
all day, all night.
How you would write under the sky because you loved to,
you enjoyed it.
Your art was everything.
Self:
Yes, I remember.
My life is based around these traits,
how I will use them to be successful.
Like before, I’ve made so many people love, listen, envy my talents.
Even though I barely practice or partake in my studies,
I can pick the instruments up
and make people watch me in awe.
The Voices:
Correct. What you say is correct,
but they are lies you tell yourself to comfort your erasing mind.
You cannot even begin to focus on anything for more than five seconds.
Our mind races, paces.
The fingers and arms move,
but your mind is in a whole other dimension.
The reason we have never pushed our dreams,
never calmed your dreams,
is the ever-consuming pain you bottle up—
the memories you suppress so much
it’s impossible to remember now.
Let’s be honest:
you are a shell of what you once were.
Lost now in so many paths of lies and deceit.
Self:
I know.
But I still have hope.
But why?
Every day I age, every second,
all I want is to be gone and rid from this earth.
You are so right.
I know I’d rather lay and make up my fantasies,
make my fake memories to escape reality,
close my eyes and pretend people want me,
pretend that I am something—
rather than try to live my dreams.
I want to, still.
I want to see myself writing those grand compositions,
still, to this moment we talk.
But I know it’s not true.
I know I will lay, imagine a life where I am someone else,
why I am a normal human.
Even now, as I write, you come from my own brain,
my own thought process.
I am within reach of the tools to do what I dream of,
what I want to do to make myself happy—
they are literally feet away,
and I have days in front of me with no plans.
Days to work on these dreams and the happiness they will provide me.
The Voices:
Well?
Right there. They are within arm’s reach now.
You’re up, thinking about it?
You would have when you were younger.
Why not right now?
Self:
Once again, I’m in the moment, contemplating.
And my choice now, as more and more recently has been,
is to not pick up my instruments—
my only source of happiness.
Instead, I choose to lay, close my eyes, and ignore the world.
Ignore reality.
Talk to myself until I have an entire world around me,
fake, in my mind.
The memories I could have if I did what I wanted.
I just lay, eyes closed, alone,
dreaming fake realities, things that aren’t real.
The Voices:
I knew it would come to this.
You always fail.
And yet we go through this almost every minute we are alive.
Why do we not just accept the reality of who we are?
Look now—really look.
Time has passed so fast when you said it wouldn’t.
You’re almost thirty now.
You have nothing and no one.
You have pushed everyone away who loved you,
and who you loved.
And now you are so lost, so out of touch with reality,
you don’t even know what’s true and what’s lies.
There is no one left who hasn’t been deceived.
Self:
How do I escape this torture?
It’s so big, so much—there’s so much.
The Voices:
…
Self:
Where have you gone?
Now I’m alone again.
Even my voices are gone now.
I have talked them away.
Now here’s the real me,
and all I see is pain.
Horrible pain.
Maybe I should just let my delusions take over.
The only ease is this knife on my wrist.
Every second of every day I only think of suicide,
of how bad I feel.
So I lie on the outside to make myself feel a shell of happiness.
I’m fake to everyone to make this illusion of a normal life.
But when this wall comes down—
whether it be for one second or for one week—
the unbearable pain comes back.
It’s not taking the easy way out.
The pain—the alcohol, the drugs, the knife cuts—
the release of my built-up tension, my built-up sadness.
It’s been so many years I don’t even remember what started it,
how I became this way.
Now these years of covering my true self have made extreme issues—
so big it’s not worth living.
I can’t even remember my childhood,
my high school days, my twenties.
I have no memories of any of it.
It scares me.
I don’t remember how to enjoy or chase my dreams.
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