You didn't even need to know what they meant; just the sound of them was cruel. Every syllable leaving her lips was like a needle injecting you with a little taste of hell until there was nothing left in you…
nothing but numb.

And everything is silent. The kind of excruciating silence you can feel in your bones after you've been around death…
lots of death.

She had done it again. Or rather, the ink had. She knew it too, yet still she read on. The words were smiling at her with beady little eyes and pointy lips; blood thirsty painful words. But it's not her fault…
you can't escape the numbness.

Before the words controlled her mind and every thought she had, before the ink pulsed true and black, deep inside her veins. Way before the nightmares became the only ones who understood her, before she whispered secrets to the shadows. Before she became it….
before she was Death.

Freedom of speech finally started a war, and who did all the work to achieve peace? The wrong people began to ask the right questions, and who did we ask to fix it? Things got to the point, only one person saw a man for what he was, and what did we say happened there? Religion became corrupt because of a new best friend named what? Children of abusive fathers started disappearing and people didn't do anything about it, instead they left all the work for whom? Things finally caused the world to open its blind eyes, and the award goes to? Everything, sooner or later…
falls on Death.
. . .
Flipping idly through the charred pages of time, I have come to realize that the numbness isn't so bad. It twists your head, gets inside your soul, and finds a way to make life better. I never said what part of life it made better. Just that when you get that close to bending reality, things find a way to get better…
at first.

Then the dark comes to collect your dues. Telling you it's time to pay tribute to the shadows that are fueling your need to feel that way. And when you don't pay up, things get ugly. The darkness sucks you in like a secret, devouring your will to go on. Tells you things not fit for the likes of man. Slowly it inches up your spine, trickles down your throat. Covers up your eyes, and eats it way through your soul. Pretty soon you begin to lose all sense of happiness. Even the laugh of your kid seems sick and churlish. There is only one single thing left to feel
inside of you…
depression.

Eventually you won't even recognize the loss of feeling. It will all just disappear, a rose, one by one disowning its petals. Things that once seemed intricate and exquisite now seem like a waste of time. You can't hug someone and feel the warmth of that person's body. You wouldn't know the meaning of a good love song if it smacked you in the face. Even the simple things, like good weather or a hot cup of coffee in the morning don't affect you. Nothing is there, nothing matters. You are just…
oblivious.

But not the good kind of oblivious, the kind they call ignorance. No, you know exactly what's going on. That is the problem, there are no secrets, you were told all of the small truths that people wake up wondering, and fall asleep looking forward to learning about. You know everything there is to know, so why keep going? I'll tell you why, you keep going…
for the numbness.

It controls you, everything about you. It controls who you are, and makes up whom you used to be. It tells you what you are going to do, and who you are going to be. No one, no thing, not a soul can save you or try to change your mind. And they better not even try to make you wake up and see that you are wrong, because the numbness is never wrong. It doesn't take no for an answer, that's why you are thriving off of it. But sooner or later, it's going to want something you don't have. That's when the new feelings come, and you just…
crash.

You crash hard, and long. The numbness is gone, and the burning black inside you is there and more apparent than ever. All you can do to save yourself is writing. You write down everything, all the feelings, and the thoughts, and the lack of. You write words you never knew were there. You write stories about despair and torture. You write poems of love and loss. Then you sit, all the feelings are coming back, one by one, and you start to recognize what you were missing. Things are getting better, the numb is gone, the black is fading, and there is only one thing left to write. You sit down and begin to pierce the page with your words…
your story.

Breathe; look around, four walls, covered with writing. Two hands, drenched with ink. One body, finally whole again. The story was over, and everyone was gone. Every last reader, hungry for more, was finally satisfied. Every drip of ink set in its place. You shut the book, there is nothing left to read, and the words are no longer there to control you.

How does it feel, knowing the world is in your hands?