I am surrounded by voices-
my loved ones, my demons,
my own rational thoughts.
They swell and ebb like the tide,

A perfect chaos which drives me on,
drives me forward or drives me mad,
echoing in the chasms of my mind
like the voices in the dark night.

The things I know to be true,
to be real and honest and fair,
my anchors, my ports in the storm,
the stubborn rope which ties me
to a mortal coil I've so often tried to escape.

They are undermined by that call,
that desire, the siren song which
drags me back to the blackness,
which promises that numbess is better,
less painful, less terrifying than living.

All my life I've heard the call,
denied its lure or thrown myself,
desperate and thoughtless,
into its depths.

I ignored the destruction I wraught
in its name, the quiet lipped,
cold eyed terror of those around me,
the frantic trembling of my own soul.

The slow death of the drowned.

Sirens do not starve or bleed or die,
gasping for air and choking down screams,
cold water closes over their heads,
freezes their bones and invades their lungs.

I am no siren. I am warm blood
and flesh annd love and passion.
I will not dampen my fire for fear
of what it may release any longer.

I will not drift, forgotten, along the sea bed.