do you hear voices?

- I have sat before desks and been asked, “Do you hear voices?” I once replied, “No, but once while I was camping, about to fall asleep listening to the crickets sing the night into day, I realized the crickets were repeating a radio broadcast of Game Two of the 1946 World Series; Musial hit one out”.
I didn't realize it was a question to be taken seriously until one day, I did meet a young man who had heard voices, no cricket fantasies for him. He took a butcher knife and did as the voices instructed; attacked his wife. She escaped, unharmed.
Recently, the question has been set before me again.
“Voices” however, goes without definition. Does it mean that I hear external voices without a physical being in the external world? Or does it mean that I hear external voices within my own head? Or does it mean that my own internal voice sometimes takes the guise of The Muse? Or does it mean the damaging energy of screams, anger, hatred, and wailing (in my own internal voice) that jolt into my calm mind are voices? If the latter be the case, then are we not all living in the Age of Voices?
I've been asking myself, “When did I first hear voices in my head? Maybe they occur before memory, like impulses of hunger. Maybe they are merely the tangibility of thoughts. Like the time, before the rule of schooling, I passed some bright yellow flowers and said to myself, “When I head back home I'm going to pick some of those for my mother.” I picked all the most beautiful yellow flowers that my little hands could hold. When I gave them to her, I received screams of anger & hatred, and was duly whipped with a 'rod' of Biblical proportions, a 'rod' that wasn't Biblical in nature whatsoever. My good intentions had no voice, hiding instead behind a wall of tears, and wails -of pain, not only against my bleeding skin, but in my brain: the physical twisting struggle against an iron grip, and electric shocks jolting against my skull for escape. It wasn't until Seventh grade biology that I realized those pretty yellow flowers had been potato blossoms, and just as impossible to preserve in a vase as they were to produce potatoes.

Often when Night settles in, and man-made lights disrupt the darkness, and my eyes beg for rest, I turn off the lights, crawl beneath the blankets of alienation and seek- the deep breath of my calm mind. At that moment, don't well all become young again, defenseless children, who had spent the length of seemingly eternal days (after all it was day when we awoke, and still day when sent to bed) absorbing the wonder and awe of being alive. It was during those days, also known as the days of growth that accidents and misunderstandings occur as brilliantly as good intentions. It's then that my mind rages against the alienation of our Age: physically twisting, jolting like lightening against baby soft membranes. And I hear my internal voice berating my being.

When these voices rule my nights, my mornings are ruled by helplessness. A host of lies become the voices in my head. I'm worthless. Hope, like wealth is something other people are entitled to. And not a natural power on earth can encourage me: not the ocean, the majestic Redwoods, the magic of Spring, the glory of a thunderstorm. I remain jobless. Broke. Hungry, Dirty, A Beggar among friends.
We are living in the Age of Voices, where the masses in America are victims of Larger Than Life greed: stealing from the helpless, forcing homelessness, poverty, and wars we oppose. Some say, the victims are creating a new Age of The Muse. That a great voice from the Wilderness of Being is being prepared for us. An empowering voice: that out of our defenselessness shall come Command and Power, that from war shall come the Golden Age of Brotherhood and Harmony.
I envy the voices they hear at night.
These days, my Muse merely rants. The voices in my head wail for self-respect. My heart drowns in self-pity. And my attempts at well intended humor come across as despair. I struggle to twist away from such Muses. I turn to more ancient means to cast out the voices of the Night. I leave the fires burning (I sleep with the light on, as if there was someone else actively living in my house), and I listen to the Storyteller's repetitive lines (I leave TV re-runs on, or old movies I've seen a hundred times).
Per haps, I am too immature to hear the words of my Muse. My eyes still see ,with a child size view of the world; when I lay my gift of yellow flowers upon the altar, I'm sent reeling, “My Joy, My Joy, why hast thou forsaken me?”