Mind Over Matter Contest Entry

The Demons We Carry- Mind Over Matter Contest Entry

The things that haunt us— that truly send shivers down our spines and make us crawl deeper under the covers— are not ghosts. They are things we cannot even see. They are the things in the one place we cannot escape, the one place that allows the demons to follow and gives no room for escape— our minds.

    The things that haunt us stir the hairs by our ears, gently whispering thoughts that we know are lies, but begin to believe are true.

    The things that haunt us are out of our control— we cannot stop their whispering, no matter what we do. The only thing we can do is try to ignore their cries and put our energy toward other, more productive things.

    Some people turn to innocent things— like music or drawing— while others turn to dangerous and forbidden activities— like underage drinking or use of illegal drugs.

    Me, well, I turned to living in other worlds.

    I found— and still find— comfort in burying myself in another world, occupying my mind with other people's problems. Now, those problems may be fictional or imaginary, but they are very real to the character in which they haunt; they are the demons that never leave the person's mind.

    We make connections with these characters. A bond forms between us and the imaginary people, and instead of spending time with friends or family, we spend time exploring the paper towns and journeying through the cities made of stardust and ink.

    At some point, we are told to put the book down. We are told to stop reading and leave our sanctuary; we are told to stop pretending and to face the real world. We are told to bury our imagination and childhood to partake in adult activities and deal with suppressed emotions and regrets.

    We listen to what we are told and we do as they say, but the demons come back. They return to their positions on our shoulders and stir the hair beside our ears as they whisper our problems into our heads. We listen to them and do as they say, but we hide our true emotions behind fake smiles and pretend laughs. We listen to them and get trapped so deep in our mind that not even the characters can get us out again.

    Then we discover we can create our own world.

    We discover we can put our own problems onto paper and find solutions. We can give other people our problems and find ways to end them. We find salvation in our stories— from the ink flowing from our pens— and the comfort of letting other people into our minds. We learn to live with our problems and we learn how to endure them.

    We are told we write beautifully— that our words inspire others to scribble onto paper and share their ideas with the world— but we chuckle and shake our heads as we say, if only you saw the darkness inside my head.