he does not control you

If you see him, do not make contact. Keep your eyes at bay, your body composed; do not let him get the chance to reach inside and find your fear. "What if he never goes away?" I think to myself. "What if these terrorizing thoughts live inside me forever?"

I wake up. I eat breakfast. I go to work. Among all these mundane tasks, I can never quite get my mind to quiet. I've lived with these thoughts for so long that they have made a home in my brain. They have become a person. What are you meant to do when you do not have control over your mind? Avoidance can only tame a human's nature for so long. So I stop. I stop the avoiding, the pretending. I let myself react to the fierce winds of his command. I let myself hear him. As his words and ideas and messages ring through my head, I start to visualize a world in which his existence is a mere cloud passing through the back of my eyes.

This cloud holds him tight so that he can no longer run lose in my brain. I am transported to a place where I can think for myself, where I can be alive instead of living to survive. I open my eyes, afraid that the cloud will burst. It doesn't. It sits beside me as I fall asleep. Before my dreams guide me through the night, I have a thought; "I am free."