There were moments where the world stood still.

Unmoving.

Just for me,

Just because I willed it to.

I would walk along the streets of a city far too quiet

And far too noisy all at the same time.

And as I stood there as if it were frozen everything stood still,

Maybe it was real and maybe time stopped just for me

And maybe I was just maddened by

The crude twisted fate thrust upon me

When I was only a boy .

There were moments when the world stood still.

It must have seemed only an instant for the others

The people frozen in place but for me it felt like a lifetime.

I could stay here in the unimaginable silence forever

Drifting through the memories inside my head

Waiting for the faintest sound

to pull me out of my silent Wonderland,

And return me

To this crude reality.

And in that moment the world no longer stood still,

It started to stir.

Slowly at first,

Then faster and faster and faster.

Until I could no longer keep up.

Instead of a peaceful silent stillness,

The world had transformed into a tempest,

Full of noise and movement.

It threatened to tear me apart.

To destroy the silence I held so dear,

And cast me into the eye of the storm,

That dark place In my mind.

I swore that I would never return there,

To that place.

Full of noise,

Of the screams of the other people trapped in my mind.

And with all the strength I had left

I forced the storm to cease once again,

And drifted back into the silent wonderland I call my home.

But the screams refused to cease

They persisted,

And with their persistence came my downfall.

My decent into madness,

And the despair that followed.

That deep dark spiral.

And yet somehow I persist,

Somehow I carry on through life.

Somehow I am not broken.  

Somehow my mind still thinks

Still loves  

Still cares for the people I thought were lost to me

And I realise that even though tragedy

And loss

And heartbreak

We will all persist

Because we are strong

And we have each other