Poem: My Other Voices

I was given a second voice, maybe a third or a fourth. And they

screamed through the silence and silenced the screams from

the shadows to the light. Those around me, the voices say,

must not have heard them yet, as their presence continues

to fill the emptiness. They’re the only ones allowed to fill that

space, they say, as they won’t leave. Otherwise, I was made to

struggle, given cinderblocks against the snowstorm and made to

wade through it. I was nowhere. Everything flicking past. Flurries of

white flying to the left and the right. My other voices’ screams filled

the silence with “panic!” Ignoring that I was at least given protection

from the storm. Something heavy, but something useful. Nothing else

matters to them but what all is wrong and what all could be wrong.

Through the storm I wade, I always come across a door. An escape.

But the voices, they pull me away. They scream to not trust it. I reach

for the knob but I always find myself back into the thick of the storm.

I was born with these voices buried, unearthed and growing when I grew.

The wrong side of normality. Sensory overload and fear, panic attacks and

Sorrow. I was given a second voice, maybe a third or a fourth. And they

fill the silence with screams.