The Voice That Is Not Mine
It started as a murmur at the edges of my thinking,
a commentary running just below the surface,
linking every action to a failure,
every pause to a defect.
A voice that knew my history with cold and clinical effect.
I tried to track the logic of its sentences,
to find the mechanism of its access
to the back rooms of my mind.
It knows the things I have not told the people in my life.
It uses that specific information like a knife.
The voice that is not mine knows where every weakness lies,
has memorized my alibis,
runs the commentary on everything I do,
and the worst part of it, brother,
is it sometimes sounds like you.
It does not tell me things I do not know on some deep level—
it synthesizes everything,
brings it to a bevel of precision, shame and evidence
arranged in argument,
assembled while I sleep each night
with my own consent.
I asked the therapist if this is clinical or common.
She said the inner critic is a feature of becoming
aware of your own processes.
I nodded. Took the pamphlet.
Walked out to the parking lot
and heard it say she cannot get
to where you actually live,
the parts you have not said aloud,
the parts that still remember what you did
before the crowd of consequence dispersed,
and that was true, I could not fight it.
The voice inside my skull has better research
and has cited it.
It is getting more efficient,
taking less time to begin.
It used to need a trigger
but it starts now from within
a simple morning, coffee, ordinary light.
The voice just picks up where it left off,
running through the night.