Alone with myself.

Deep into that darkness peering,
long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams
no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken,
and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken
was the whispered word, 'Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo
murmured back the word, 'Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more. - Edgar Allan Poe (from "The Raven")

The silence is deafening. Not a sound but the clock on the mantle and the slow exhausting repetetive draw of each breath I take. These are the moments I hate yet, oddly, seek the most. These are the moments where my thoughts are so loud I wish they had a volume control. This surreal existence, hanging from the thinnest of threads, suspended somewhere between the dreadful reality below which I am not yet ready to accept but into which I will inevitably fall, and the imaginary fantasy above, of what life once was and what it would be still had I only done something different to change it all. But what? When? How might I have changed the road down which I have traveled to arrive at this place? Questions to which I may never know the answer abound in my head... throbbing and aching until what?? Until I become "used to" or just numb from the pain of not knowing??

I have never been one to be led by my emotions or to allow myself to make decisions based solely upon them. Analytical by nature, I have always searched for "reason" and for "logic" before cataloging away, in the annals of my brain, even that which is painful or sorrowful to me. Skeletons and hatchets seem to remain buried that way. It has always worked, at least until now. Now, when there is no logic or reason to be found am I suspended in this hopeless transition between what I thought existed, and what exists despite my efforts to prevent it. These emotions which have never guided my path now threaten to suck me powerlessly into a place of which I am terrified.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a robotic shell of a man who never experiences emotion. I simply do not allow myself to make decisions, especially life-changing ones, with no compass to guide me except that which constantly points to how I "feel" at the moment. Feelings change from day to day but the polarities of right and wrong do not. I've prayed. I've pondered. I've listended to advice and surrounded myself with those who love and care for me. But it does not change where I am. It does not change how I feel. It does not change the desperation with which I cling to this rapidly unraveling thread that keeps me from drowning in the reality of being alone. It does not silence the deafening roar of silence itself. Yet still I seek these moments like I seek air to breath. These moments where I am alone... alone with myself.