Losing a Winning Battle

My hair is full of pins while my Brain is full of needles.

It’s hard to sit still when your demons come

 to taunt you and hold you down;

Yet you do anyways.

You stare quietly at the board or the wise man in front of you 

trying to impart his knowledge of Socrates,

You listen to the video the woman plays of activism and new perspectives.

All while there is a war inside your head.

The war is 500 to 1.

You are that 1, and you have days where you slay these demons with ease,

ceaselessly and with vigor.

You have the sword of truth 

and the shield of bravery and history on your side.

But today, one of the demons grabs your sword,

 while the other snatches your shield,

And the horde of terrifying thoughts come cluster on top of your body-

Holding you down and suffocating you.

They enter your body like parasites and you become the horde.

"See? You are evil," they say.

"How dare you think you could be normal?," they laugh.

And now you can’t even hide in your room, 

or talk the way you do to ground yourself.

Here you are, in the presence of demons,

As you should be, you filthy whore.

They are not always specific on how I will become evil 

but they guarantee that is what I shall become:

A serial killer who brutally murders my family and others in glee.

A rapist or pedophile who terrorizes those close to me and innocent children.

Someone who hides in the backyard killing small and big animals alike with no remorse.

Someone who robs a bank or steals from my job, and ends up behind bars.

Someone who randomly and violently attacks others.

A drug addict who tries to fill an empty void, while simultaneously destroying my accomplishments.

The ways to evil are endless, but the path to goodness is one and narrow.

They tell me I am too big to be on a narrow path-

I will give in,

And they will be there laughing and shouting with glee when I do.

Outside of myself I hear someone ask

“Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

I laugh to myself and wonder how I explain that I have an auto-immune disease, 

but instead of my cells it is my thoughts that attack themselves-

endlessly torturing one another until my episode is over.

I assure the person I will be okay,

I have been here before.

And despite going through Hell I know I will come out the other side-

perhaps scarred, bruised, scratched,

But still alive, 

following the rope I have left for myself to 

remind me how to get out of the darkness.

I am alive.

Despite every battle I lose,

I will always win the war,

Because I am not evil.

I am not evil.

I am not evil.

I am not evil.

And the fact that I can still remind myself of that proves that I have won and I will win-

Despite how often I lose.