THE SEVERED SOUL: THE WAR I WAGED AGAINST MYSELF

The mirror in my hallway doesn't show a reflection anymore; it shows a casualty of war. I stand there in the dimly lit apartment, staring at the glass, and I don't see a man. I see a jagged, bleeding fault line dividing what I am and what I could have been. On the dusty coffee table behind me sits that damned book. The black cover, the bold, blood-red letters: YOU VS YOU.

​There is a unique, suffocating kind of fury that burns inside your chest when you finally realize that the universe isn't out to get you. God isn't punishing you. Society isn't holding you back. The only person ruining your life is the one occupying your skin.

​I sit on the edge of the unmade bed, feeling exactly like the wretched creature sketched on that book cover—a hollow, headless shell, holding my own severed mind in my trembling hands, forced to listen to it scream at me. The human mind, when left unchecked, is a ruthless butcher. It severs itself from the heart and points an unforgiving, bony finger at the bleeding remains of your life.

​"You let her go," the voice echoes in the oppressive silence of the empty room. It is my own voice, but colder, sharper, dripping with venom. "You weren't strong enough to silence me, so you silenced her instead."

​I clench my fists until my knuckles turn white, my nails digging half-moons into my palms. The anger is a living, breathing monster inside my chest, clawing violently at my ribs, desperate to tear its way out. I hate my own weakness. I despise the cowardice that made me push her away.

​I close my eyes and I can still feel the delicate warmth of her hand in mine. I remember the soft, trusting way she used to look at me in the mornings. Her eyes were full of a quiet, profound poetry—she looked at me like I was the hero of our story. Her love was a sanctuary, a quiet, sunlit room where my chaotic, screaming thoughts could finally rest. When she held me, the war stopped.

​But a man fighting a violent war inside his own head has no hands left to hold the woman he loves.

​I was so busy battling my own insecurities, my own toxic doubts, and my own irrational fears that I slowly, inevitably became the villain in the only pure thing I ever had. I used my own unhealed trauma as a weapon against her kindness. Every time she tried to pull me into the light, my mind convinced my heart that the light was a trap. I convinced myself that I didn't deserve her, that I was broken beyond repair, and that eventually, she would realize it too. So, I decided to destroy it first. I burned our bridge just to prove that fire still hurts.

​Be strong or be forgotten. Those red words from the cover are branded into my skull now, flashing like a neon sign in a dark alley. How do you stay strong when the enemy knows all your deepest secrets? How do you fight back when the enemy uses the intoxicating memory of her laugh, the scent of her perfume, and the ghost of her touch to break you down?

​I remember the rainy afternoon she finally walked away. The sky was the color of bruised iron. The hardest, most agonizing part of that day was that she didn't leave because she stopped loving me. I could see the love still burning fiercely in her tear-streaked eyes. She left because she simply couldn't bear to watch me tear myself apart anymore. My internal bleeding had started to stain her soul.

​"I can't fight you and fight for you at the same time," she had whispered, her voice cracking.

​And just like that, I traded the most beautiful, soul-deep romance for this miserable, suffocating isolation. I chose the familiar comfort of my own darkness over the terrifying vulnerability of her peace.

​Now, the apartment is dead quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. It is just me and the ghost of my own mind, sitting together in the dark. I am the executioner, and I am the victim. The ultimate tragedy of this life isn't that we are fragile, or that the world is a cruel and unforgiving place. The absolute, undeniable tragedy is that we are the ones holding the hammer, smashing our own hearts to pieces because we are too afraid to let someone else protect them.

​I look down at my hands. They are empty. Cold. The war is over, and I have lost. I successfully defeated myself. And the chilling truth is, looking at that book, I finally understand the warning. If I don't find a way to put the pieces of my severed soul back together, I won't just be living alone in this dark room.

​I will be entirely, inevitably, and rightfully forgotten.