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There Is An Angel Who Sits Upon My Shoulder Who Goes By The Name Of Death

Preface: For the last day of mental health month, I wanted to share something I wrote that deals with some rather dark struggles. Struggles that I know others face as well. Struggles that I hope might be eased for just one person who reads this, even if only in the smallest way.

There is an angel who sits upon my shoulder who goes by the name of Death, And though I cannot always see him, upon my neck I can always feel his breath As he whispers to me relentlessly, deftly using my soul’s own Shibboleth.

He is my phantasmagorical companion from which there has thus far been no escape, One who has no single voice nor form yet is somehow always horrific in his shape When my mind’s eye sees him lying in the darkest shadows of my brain's path-illogical landscape.

For while it may be hidden, we are locked in eternal battle, one to which we both are bound, And though the clashes rage on deep within, the fighting furious and yet without a sound, The hardest part is not the fighting, it is the feeling that there will never be any respite to be found.

This war is one without casualties but still with victims–its battles waged within the mind– But even having entreated aid from all my demons with any values I could trade in kind, I have yet to even dream of any type of peace accords to which we would both agree to bind.

But what I have paid in pain to learn in this seemingly Sisyphean struggle is that one cannot sit idly by, That every new assault of his is but an opportunity for me to learn new tactics that I can in future then apply. Thus I have vowed: Whatever new mental munitions he has in store for me, nor what deadly schemes I must yet defy– Though I know, like you, I too will one day meet my end, it shall be he who will be the first to die.

-- @thoughtsfromb4

Elisabeth Shue (33) in The Trigger Effect (1996)

The Starry Night (1889) by Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas.

Currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Oracle of the Elements design project.

Soulo

- He's going to stop... by. -