Speaking into the void

"The Premonition" (digital photomanipulation), Michael Vincent Manalo

There's a gulf between them and I, created by the detritus flooding out of my soul after years of being locked inside. Sometimes you hide in a cave so deep that you have nowhere else to throw your garbage, so you live with it. The door has been guarded by the armed guards of fear and shame and no one gets past them alive.

They say self-hatred is as old as sin. You can tell me not to feel it, but I'll just put it in hiding again. It's like a lifelong addiction that has consumed you: you don't see any way out because you've been surrounded for so long.

Can you throw it off if you come out of hiding? Or will coming out into the open just trigger a new kind of hiding? 

......................................

There are no small questions these days. Distract with work, the pool, the children, the housekeeping. The inner monologue keeps rolling. Doubt is a snowball tossed down a mountain and you are in the valley right in it's path. Huddle up in a ball against the pain and it will roll over you and carry you further away from joy.

Should one keep writing when it's this dark? Sometimes it feels like the only window of hope is the flourescent computer screen hovering over the keyboard in the deepest part of the night. Writing feels as selfish as everything else right now. 

Is it an encouragement to anyone to share this heavy grief?

Or is it time to shutter the doors on this space that was once so hopeful, where I've wrestled my demons and counted my joys and poured my soul out in front of the world. It's hard to know if there's an end to this tunnel because I can't yet see the light.

"Last"