The Demon Within

“Stop, you can’t pull that off,” he screams in my ear, “there is no way that anyone wants to read that story, no one care, they will just think that you are stupid.” I labor to the voice yelling at me the whole way. I can not get a break from the screeching as I write. It is a constant strain on my body as a labor to get the words on the page, fighting, striving, to conquer the voice.

There are two parts to me the demon that screams and the soul that whispers. They both must have what they want, but they both want to destroy the other. One can not live while the other is still within me. This internal struggle battles on within me, at times one is overpowering the other, usually the demon is in control, but every now and then the soul is allowed to whisper with in me.

As I read Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” I thought of how my soul was oppressed, or made a slave to my demon. In making this comparison I want in no way to be little the struggle that the slaves went though or there suffering. I only mean to speak of how my soul struggles to write while my demon tells him he cannot.

My soul struggles to write, to be “involved in work [my] soul must have.” It struggles to live, to breath, but it must have more. To breathe is not enough it must create, it must paint a picture with its words, a picture that invokes life within those that read it. My soul, just like Walker’s mother, is radiant, but only when it is involved in the work that it must have.

My demon wants to stop me, wants to make me little more then a shell. It does not want the shine of my soul to escape; it does not want it to be seen in-between the lines. It wants it to die, to disappear and never come back. It battles as I write to make my hands stop, to make the words halt, to make me double think every letter that is put on the page. Yelling, screaming, it tries to drive me crazy, to make me forget the word that must go down.

I battle on; not knowing what will come next, not thinking about the ending only knowing that the words must come out. The battle rages on as the worlds spill onto the page. My demon tries to strangle my soul, tries to snuff out the light that keeps him alive. I must not let this happen; I cannot let the demon win. Then there will be nothing left of me. I will be empty, no more then a shell taking up space. Like a lobster shell after it molts.

How can I go on with this pounding in my head? The demon demands that I stop, but I cannot, I will not let it win. I must nourish the flam within my soul. I must make it more radiant, more vibrant then it ever has been before, I must let my soul win. For if my soul wins I win. I become more then an empty shell floating in the sea, I become someone, I become me.

Will this battle ever end, will this war ever cease. I do not know, I can only hope that as I put these words on this page that my soul will gain strength to overcome the demon that enslaves him. That my soul will gain the power to break the bounds that entangle him and to shine freely though the worlds it puts in my mind. I can only continue to struggle to put the words on paper, to set the words free to do what they must. I can only let my soul breath and create. To do the work it must to survive.