we all have voices inside of us that speak to us.
in whispers or in screams.
and those voices came from somewhere.
and they need to go.
Sometimes I try to remember when the voices started.
Sometimes I wonder when they’ll go away. Or if they’ll go away at all.
It’s better not to think of that last one though, because there’s one voice that whispers an answer every time that I ask.
An answer that I deeply hope is a lie.
But what if the words it tells me in that whisper are true, after all? The thought of that scares me.
So I try not to wonder about that.
I can’t even remember a time when they haven’t been there.
They have made my own voice so small, it’s almost impossible for me to find it..
So quiet and hesitant that it barely even tries to be heard anymore.
When it does, it is swiftly shut down and swept away by the collective voice.
A singular voice now, born of the multitude of voices that took up residence throughout the years.
I would hear them, inside of me, in their own voices when they spoke to me.
They were voices that were not mine but I knew them all the same.
They were teachers, friends, aunts, uncles, doctors and strangers even.
The voices of those closest were the easiest to believe and allow in to stay.
My best friends, my lovers, my partners.
My mother.
Critiqued and judged, found to be lacking. A disappointment and of little value.
Their voices would scold, judge, shame and humiliate me.
Every doubt that my self mused over would be violently wrenched from my grip and
tossed amongst the voices like a game of hot potato.
The intensity and pain of the doubt growing stronger and more powerful as it went from voice to voice.
The self-doubt changed and shaped into a truth in their grasp before it was given back to me where I would accept it and hold it tightly to me.
It was mine now. True and indisputable. Believed.
My voice wouldn’t lie to me.
MY voice.
I wonder sometimes when the voices stopped being “them” and became “me”.
When did they start to speak in my voice, sounding like me and not themselves anymore?
Their whispers and shouts no longer familiar or known, but now in my own voice.
The cadence and nuances of what spoke to me made up of the very fibre of my self.
Sometimes I try to remember when the voices started.
Sometimes I wonder when they’ll go away. Or if they’ll go away at all.
whisky sweet 