Where Pride Sleeps, Shadows Awaken

"This is a song we all hear — some learn to turn away, others follow it into the dark."

There is a place where pride hums beneath every breath.

It begins softly. A longing to be seen. The hunger to outgrow shadows and second glances. The first taste is sweet, like sugar on snow — easy to crave, hard to refuse.
It creeps in like a gentle hand at first, resting on your shoulder, whispering: You deserve more.
And you believe it. Of course you do. Why shouldn’t you?

Soon, every choice begins to sound like destiny:
"I deserve this. I am owed."

The voice grows stronger. The hand on your shoulder presses down — comforting, possessive.
You start to carry yourself differently. Words sharpen. Glances weigh more heavily. And all the while, pride feeds — on moments of injustice, on every slight, real or imagined, on the deep ache of feeling unseen.

What once was simple yearning now becomes a crown worn too tightly. The gaze hardens. The voice grows sharp. The heart closes its doors to the gentle and the small.

Some first taste pride as envy: a child’s bitter longing. The need to be more than a shadow, to carve a place in the sun that others have denied. Each choice, each betrayal, wrapped in the fine silk of what I deserve.
Sweet on the tongue. Bitter in the marrow.

Others fall from greater heights. Once exalted, once beloved — now adrift, glaring down with a heart ablaze. No praise is pure enough. No crown is large enough.
The higher they soared, the deeper the hunger grew. And now the stars themselves seem too dim to match the burning within.

This is the lullaby of ego.
Soft at first. Then relentless.
It hums beneath your thoughts, whispering of greatness, of owed crowns, of vindication.
It strokes your hair with fingers of fire and mirrors.

"Sleep with one eye open."
Because ego never sleeps. It waits. It feeds on whispers.
It sharpens your edges in the dark.

And when you wake?
You stand alone in the ruins of what you built.

"It begins with a whisper: I deserve. It ends with silence."

Some tear away the mask in time — weary, humbled, seeking a quieter truth.
Others cannot let go. They walk on, hollow and shining, still seeking what cannot be caught.
They sing the song again and again, louder each time, hoping it will drown out the hollow ache inside.

And we — all of us — must tread softly. Ego is not a sin of monsters.
It is a hunger written into the marrow of the human heart.
A child’s cry for justice, twisted by time into a tyrant’s roar.

Tread softly, my friend.
Not every voice in the dark is worth listening to.
Not every hand that reaches out means to guide you.

Guard the corners of your heart. Ego waits there, patient as stone.
It can turn a king to a husk, a friend to a stranger, a dream to a cage.

"Walk softly through the shadows of your own heart — not every song is meant to be followed."

by Onnaya