There’s a quiet tug
It grows in the shadows, nameless. I tell myself I can ignore it this time, that I’m stronger now, but that’s a lie I’ve repeated too often. It waits in the silence, biding its time, creeping back in the spaces between thoughts. It doesn’t care if I notice or not—it knows.
What is it I’m running from? Or toward? I don’t even know anymore. It’s not something I can name, but I can feel it like a storm beneath the skin, a disturbance I can’t place. I’ve been here before. In the quiet moments, when the world is still, and the only sound is the hum of thought. This is when it strikes—when everything should be calm, but inside, it’s chaos.
It’s not a voice, not really. More like a pulse, an insistent rhythm in the back of my mind, urging, pushing, pulling. I don’t know what it wants. Sometimes, it feels like destruction—other times, release. But it’s neither. It’s both. It’s everything and nothing at once.
I give in, sometimes. Not because I want to, but because the pressure becomes too much. The line between thought and action blurs, and I find myself following it, moving toward it without even realizing I’m moving at all. Like sleepwalking. Like I’m not fully awake.
And when it passes, it leaves me hollow. Empty. But in that emptiness, there’s something almost comforting. It’s done, for now. The tension dissolves into stillness, the storm recedes, and I’m left to pick up the pieces of whatever remains.
Why do I do this? Why do I let myself fall? It’s not even the falling that scares me anymore. It’s the moment before—the creeping sense that something’s wrong, the knowledge that I’m losing control, and the sinking certainty that I can’t stop it.
I don’t want to name it. Giving it a name would make it real, make it something I can confront. But it’s not something that can be confronted. It’s part of me, and that’s the worst part of all. It’s not outside. It’s inside. Ingrained. Inescapable.
Because the truth is, there’s no real escape. Only pauses between the storms.
