This is a pamphlet. A single voice adrift at sea.
If no man is an island, one man is an island. I am it. An island wracked by a storm of man-wrought proportions.
I isolate myself. Insulated, voluntarily closing my senses to the waves crashing ashore, and to the cries of other men that the howling winds throw at my face. The tragedies of many are too much for one. An encroaching, hungry echo reverberating inside. Their claws scour me. My soul marked, before the winds are blown away again. I stand at the edge of a precipice, staring down, then up and to the sides, and I see only bleakness. So I shut off my senses. That’s the only power that remains mine when all else is powerless.
I search inside, how I can combat this. I am at war. With myself, mostly, while the world wars on around me. Recalibrating my defenses. Reassessing my beliefs. I grasp at the tatters of the answer how it came to this, the answer eluding me. I yearn to understand. How do I fight this?
I’ve had time to think about this and the answer comes naturally, in the end. With words. Words are the sharpest sword I own. The pen is the bulwark holding dark thoughts at bay before they consume. It has always been so.
And then I blink and I see I am not alone. There are other islands around, grappling with the storm. And there is comfort in knowing that we are many. So I look down, then up and to the sides, from behind the bars of the cage I alone hold the keys to. And I see rays poking through the darkness. Timid ones, still. My heart hammers in my throat, threatening to burst. I am coming to grips with the fact the pain is always the sharpest before it ends.
But all storms come to an end.
….
Did you like what you read? Then leave a kind word. More importantly, remember the power of words. The power to hurt and destroy. But also to heal and restore. No man is an island.