Hearing the Dead

They’re constantly there. I hear them all the time. I feel like a madwoman, running away from a burning bridge where the bridge just never ends. They’re constantly around me. They don’t ever leave me alone. They take turns, they have a list up–listing out their shifts–and every single one of them is committed to the list and to their score. They’re constantly around me and in me and nothing stops them, nothing drowns them. They follow me in my sleep, they manifest in my dreams, they follow my music, they follow my every train of thought, every nightmare, every loving gesture, every horrid word. I am never alone, and it's not in a good way. I’m never alone because they're constantly there, wrapping their bodies around my throat, catching onto my lungs, twisting my guts in pain. They're constantly there in my ears, in my head; it's so many voices, it's like I hear all the dead. They’re screaming at me and wailing and crying and belittling me to do better to keep trying to kill myself to be more worthy more grateful to be more patient more kind to be more strong to be more hostile to be more gentle to be sublime to take over the world to launch myself to the moon to eat up space and swallow this room. They're telling me to leave and stay and stay and leave. The voices in my head, they’re grieving every day at the pyre that they create. Laughter cackles in the background as the day dies and the fire burns out. “Will she be dead for good today? Or will she get up tomorrow for another round?” It’s a game to them, to the voices in my head. I'm not a human to them, I'm their two-legged bobblehead. “Lobotomy! Lobotomy!” I scream at the world. Burn me at the stake, I think I am a witch unfurled. Let me drown in the ocean till the salt fills up my heart. Let me eat the dirt so that the voices are underground. The voices are playing with me, I'm in a ghost town. My head is spinning and I don’t know which way I came in and which way is out. Can you help me see the light? I ask for a hand. The cackling is louder, the fire crackles in my head. Cut your head open, we will all come out. Cut your head open, you will not feel us around. So I cut my head open and hope in blood that they drown. I cut my head open and the voices, they cackle at my pyre now.