Letting Go

When I think about letting things go, I think of a crackling fire, burning away all the garbage that clutters the inside of my mind. It just floats around in there, taking up so much room and it leaves no space for the things in life that matter.

That garbage, that desperately needs to go up in smoke, is you.

You.

The voice inside my head that keeps me up all night. The voice that makes me worry about every little thing: things that are out of my control, things that are in the past, and in general, things I can't do anything about. I can't control or change the weather and I can't control what happened two days ago.

This is what I need to let go of. The worries, the negative thoughts, and the annoying voice that keeps me trapped inside the walls of my own mind.

Your voice? It's heavy. Ever-persistent in its need of me. It clings tightly. It knows my desire to let it go, but its claws run deep. Every time I think I have made progress...every time I think I've managed to get rid of you, you come back stronger than the time before. It feels like the healing is superficial, external, and like it never goes as deep as you. The voice of what you say temporarily disappears, but you, are never gone.

Your words, and constant harassment, it's like an old friend, always present, always there. I often wonder how freeing it would be to shut you up for good. To take those piles, to use that razor thirty seconds away in the bathroom. Then you wouldn't be able to get to me anymore.

But then again, I would hurt those around me. You would move on to someone else. To my boyfriend. To my mom. To my grandparents who have never done anything but show me how much they love me.

But hearing you is like nails on a chalk board. Somehow, I need to let go of you.

I am angry at you, voice. You write off my achievements and focus only on my faults. You tell me that my passion for writing and art is useless. That none of it matters.

You. Are. Wrong.

I matter. And because I matter, so does everything that I love. I want you gone, voice. You make me shrink into myself. You make me feel small and minuscule. Like the world's gravity will squish me if I take just one moment to breathe.

But no. I burn you, demon. I burn you. Right here. Right now. This writing, and these words, these are your exorcism. You are burnt to ash, breaking away in the breeze like the nothing you have made ME feel like.

I am letting you go. I am free of you. This is your exorcism.