Creak, whoosh, rustle. Creak, whoosh, rustle. I find myself repeating these sounds in my head. The harmonic rhythm plays until I can no longer recognize it. The creak of the rickety, old swingset transforms into silence. The wind is no longer allowed to enter my ears. The whispers of leaves on surrounding trees cease, their words no longer reaching me. The sun shines, but a dark film smothers it in a cold embrace. Encasing a happy day in a curtain of sadness that cannot be disturbed. It does that now more often than not. My own silence has resulted in the loudness of the world. I have found that I have a desire for quiet on days like this, which is why the air seems louder than ever. But, it isn’t with the chirping of birds, or the laughter of my human companions; it’s with a sea of words that slowly suffocates me.

They ask question after question. Every word, every syllable is foreign. Their words are insignificant, anything they could say would go in one ear and out the other. They look at me with pity-filled eyes, but I am no charity case. I can’t believe them; I refuse to. As if they want to hear my words! I try to scream, but the words don’t form, and I am confined once again to the walls I built myself.

Make it stop. The words are overwhelming. Coming in floods, drowning me from the inside out. Worthless. Unimportant. Nothing. These are the words I must battle everyday. They don’t stop; they simply wait until I’m most vulnerable, then attack again. My weaknesses become strengths, used as a gun for my own destruction. My insecurities are the bullets, just waiting to be released. The agony of strangers is consuming me, and their feelings won’t go away. My limbs are numb, the pain is growing, and happiness is too far away. I find it quite amusing that these words can cause so many emotions; that they can make me feel everything all at once, or absolutely nothing at all.

The words are stacking up. Hundreds upon hundreds. They move up instead of out, as to form mountains of fear around me. They intimidate me to their fullest ability, and back down for nothing. These untamed monsters will grow stronger the longer they are free, but isn't it wrong to try controlling them? Wouldn't containing them be the same as containing myself? At this point I am blinded by the pain they inflict on me. I cannot see them for anything except the bearers of evil. That is a fault of mine, and one that will not stray from me in times to come. Words and people have much more in common than we care to admit, but we acknowledge these similarities everyday. We know how much we can change others. We know that we have power beyond our wildest dreams, but rarely do we utilize that power accordingly.

My companions surround me with their human noise; they smile, they laugh. They speak words that should be directed at me, but I can’t feel them. I am only able to watch as they hit a person that should be me. I stay hidden as I witness the impact, so as not to be scarred by the debris. The aftermath is nonexistent; the impact is happening now. I do not react. I do not try to stop it. Because to stop beautiful chaos is to stop the world in mid-step, and that would be a crime to humanity itself.

I faced myself in a mirror and could not see my own reflection. I saw only sorrow. It’s a hard thing to not recognize yourself. To look at your hands to find that someone has replaced them, to read your own words to see the writing of a stranger. It’s even harder to keep writing until you can recognize it, to keep looking until you can see your own hands. Living a life outside of yourself is a fearful game, but it’s one that I would never play without.

I’m not sure how I got here. I don’t think I would ever wish to go back. To go back would be to start again, to leave the middle. The middle of everything is foreign to me, but it’s importance is all too familiar. Without a middle, nothing would ever truly be whole. That is my location right now: the middle. No matter what happens here, the only direction I can move is forward, and that is a gift I will never take for granted.