THE VOICE INSIDE ME

I imagine it sitting quietly in the corners of my mind, with its hands folded and its legs crossed, watching me. Judging me. It's like a mirror that points out every crack and every soft spot I try to protect. Sometimes it doesn't need to shout. Sometimes Its tone is almost too gentle, almost caring, like a hand resting on my shoulder while pushing a knife deep into me. It always says, "you should have known better",

"you always fall for the same things", 

"Look at you, you're so pathetic",

"you should just die, that way you'll stop being a goddamn problem".

Everyday of my life, I wake up with it. Before my feet touches the floor, it's already there, taking inventory of my failures. It tells me how today might go wrong. It tells me what people might think of me before they even look my way. Sometimes it pretends to help by telling me stuff like, "Don’t speak too much today. You’ll say something stupid". 

And so I stay quiet, because I always think it knows best.

The voice is a constant hum beneath everything I do. In my relationship with people, it tells me I am replaceable, that my effort is never enough. When I succeed, it tells me that it was luck, timing, or probably pity. When I fail, it nods knowingly, as if it has been waiting to say, "See? I warned you". It makes decisions for me about what to wear, where to go, when to leave.

Love is where the voice becomes even more dangerous. When someone looks at me with softness in their eyes, the voice stiffens.

"Be careful", it will always say. "What if it's all an act? You can't trust what he says".

It reminds me of every past disappointment, every almost-love that ended sadly. It teaches me how to anticipate abandonment so it won’t surprise me when it comes. So I pull away before I am pushed. I test affection and I doubt sincerity. I ruin good moments by preparing for their ending.

Yet, cruelly, the voice also protects me. It has saved me from staying too long in places that were breaking me. It has sharpened my instincts, taught me how to read between lines, how to sense danger before it announces itself. Sometimes, when I am about to trust too easily, it tightens its grip and says, "Slow down". And I listen, because a part of me knows that it's trying to keep me alive.

However, the cost is still heavy. I am always anxious even in moments of joy. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop because happiness feels temporary, borrowed, like something I will have to return soon and with interest. I rehearse conversations before they happen and replay them long after they end. I apologise too much. I love with caution and then I leave feeling guilty.

Some times, I try to imagine a life without the voice. A quiet mind and a calmer way of existing but the voice has grown with me, it feeds on my fears, learned my patterns. It knows my weaknesses by heart because it helped create them. It is stitched into my thoughts, braided into my identity. And now, I have stopped asking it to leave. The voice inside me is no longer a visitor nor something I will one day, outgrow. It is a shadow that stretches when the light hits me, proof that I am still standing. It is a curse that sometimes feels like a guide.

And as sad as that truth is, I know this much: the voice inside me will never leave me.