Midnight Voices

This poem is proof that I've always struggled to sleep during emotionally stressful times. I don't actually remember why I wrote this poem, except that it had to do with a boy. It was written a few days after I kissed the first boy just for fun... so maybe it was that. I do remember it was written in the middle of the night using a small flashlight.  November 4, 1998.  11th grade, age 16.

Voices

Sleep is nearly gone...

Yet we still rest...

The night surrounds us all...

This is the ultimate test...

What lies in the hear...

What truth is in the soul?

Is it voice or conscience,

Who is in control?

And yet, who is the judge?

That says lose or win?

Do we get a jury...

Or decide our own sin?

And if we choose ourself, 

Then it was our choice...

Who then speaks the opposite?

Who owns the voice?

And who punishes for 

the secret no one knows?

No one's hurt, no mind sees.

Who punishes those?

And if the act is secret...

And the world is blind...

Is it really wrong...

Only existing in one mind...

Is it fair to forgive self?

And let time go bye?

For the choice was made...

Hidden to the eye...

Is that why we think...

When enclosed by the night?

Afraid to be seen 

in the day's sunlight?

But, if we don't see the problem...

Why the need to hide?

Why not share...

If we aren't damaging pride?

These questions go unanswered,

They surrender to the night...

As if an answer's simple...

If you didn't have the fight.

If we didn't judge ourselves,

Conflict would not be...

But conscience lives in us all,

and it won't set us free.

So, if sometimes we choose right,

and other times wrong.

The choice: stay straight or rebel,

either way we must be strong.

The only way to stay free,

and not to take a fall...

If we could just turn off the voices,

and choose not to choose at all.