I close my eyes, letting the rain run in rivulets down my face, a cold feeling in my throat. When will it stop? The feeling that beckons to me, no, begs me, to listen. Listen to what? A feeling? The enticement of an unseen hand, pulling me towards itself? I take an unsteady step forward, then another, I can’t stop. Mud, water, tears. Closer, closer. I’m standing on the edge now. Can I turn back? Will I? But it is futile to resist, I can’t control myself, can’t walk away. But something holds me back. Perhaps the last of my sanity, or a will to fight, free myself of this entanglement of emotion. I’m shaking now, openly weeping. But the feeling persists, as does the drumming of the rain, reminding me of reality. Just a bit closer now.. I spread my arms, oh, to be free. Can I stop? I fail to stop.

Every day it happens… Not that much during daytime, but more at night… I often find myself just laying around in my bed, sleepless… It comes to me every night… A sudden feeling… A feeling of wanting to end it all… A feeling of wanting to be finally free… To get rid of everything… At some points, without even noticing it, I find myself standing in my home’s kitchen, holding a knife… I don’t like that feeling… but nor do I dislike it… My palms, sweating in anxiety… My legs, trembling in fear… My breath, stuttering in agony… “Why have I reached this point?” “Am I really hopeless?” “I don’t want it to end…” “Because you can’t take it no more” “Yes, you are hopeless” “I’m sure you want the end to come…” “There it is again! This feeling! It has a voice! It’s.. i-it’s.. Inside my head… It’s telling me what to do… It’s controlling my consciousness!” Yet, as I am making these thoughts, I can already feel the blood, flowing down my wrist and dropping on the carpet before recollecting my senses… “It happen again… Every day it happens.
I sense a great battle within, between the virtuous and the base parts of the self. The drive to act in accordance to the better angels of our nature, versus the need to satisfy every instantaneous impulse, no matter how perverse. Sometimes the angels win…. And sometimes they lose. And sometimes there’s no fight at all. There’s no thought. The animal in us takes over, and all notions of magnanimity and forgiveness and altruism are swept aside in a paroxysm of grief and madness and revenge. The urge becomes a very requirement for survival, becomes instinctive. It becomes the soul itself. As long as there is a battle to fight, there is hope. These are the urges we all feel inside and we try our best to fight them everyday.

Music by: Lucas King