Powerless.

******TRIGGER WARNING******

I never thought of myself as somebody who had power over anything, really. I have no power over people dropping bombs or Mother Nature ripping cities to shreds. I have no power to change the weather. We all have power over something though; maybe we just don’t realise it until we become powerless. Power can be found in the smallest actions.

Power is defined as the ability or capacity to do something or to act in a particular way; the power of speech for example is quite clearly the ability to talk. Not all of us have this power. It’s not a superpower by any stretch, but it’s a power and without it, we’re powerless. We’re powerless to the cruel world and the dangers on every corner. If we can’t hear, we’re powerless to the dangers of the oncoming storms. If we cannot see, we’re powerless to the wars around us.

I have the power of speech and sight and hearing; I’d be lost without these and yet still any one of these would be more understandable and accepted than the ways I have lost my power. As a child, growing up, I had the power to eat, the power to get out of bed, the power to walk, the list goes on. I had power over myself. I’ve lost this power. I’ve become powerless to The Monster within me.

The Monster forces me to put my fingers down my throat as far as they will go. I know I shouldn’t do this. I know I don’t want to do this. The back of my throat isn’t a place that I want to explore. I am crying and I’m wishing somebody would walk by this way and stop me from doing this. Please. Somebody, just stop this. I scream into the void of my brain. “Stop!” bounces off the sides of my head like the constant echo of “hello” in a cave.

I am powerless. I am struck by fear. I am paralysed. My senses are heightened. The leaves rustle all around me. The water trickles behind me, snaking its way through the landscape towards its prey. Somebody coughs but there is nobody around me; a passer-by in the distance oblivious to the war that rages on. I think that I can quell The Monster with a drink but the juice encourages him. I repeat the action over and over. With every new act of forceful violence against my throat, I am struck by some new fear. I am powerless to this and I cannot see the way out so I continue to push until I am empty and there is nothing left for me to offer. I lack the energy to walk home; I stumble and I am close to falling many times. I hear movements all around me; the rustle of a leaf is an oncoming fox attack. Further I walk but I do not reach my destination. I am caught in the timelessness. I listen to the world outside; to the birds humming their nightly songs, to the people enjoying their Saturday night freedom, to the fox as it forages for scraps of food, to the cars as they travel their weary roads and still I am lost.

I don’t know who won because I don’t understand if The Monster is me or not. How can it be something else? It must be me? But I know I don’t want this for myself and it’s so horrible that most of me wishes Death would come by to take me instead. Hours later, as I write this, my throat burns like the glowing fire but it is far from pretty. There is no remedy for the constant pain that I feel and sleep will not come. I have been punished. I’m afraid, anyway, that if I go to bed, I’ll never get out of it again. So I stay awake and I write. I listen to the birds as they sing their morning songs and I watch the sun as it rises to start its day, oblivious to the conflicts of the world and its people.