Altered Ego

Are we then our own enemies?
A quite legitimate muse, after all.
Just think how frightening, utterly
demoralizing it would be that
some force intimate to the self,
forever insisting on being there,
beside you, skilled at manipulating
your emotions, thoughts, reactions,
tugged your nerve-taut strings
to reflect his whims and moods
and you helpless to respond other
than as his diabolical mind directs.
What a dreadful scenario.  That
other, capable of eliciting pleasure
and joy, equally skilled with misery
and fear, plays these little mind
games and you are "it".  The victim
of a double agent, unmoved by the
insecurity that settles like a darkly
opaque fog over your viscera,
never knowing which of the
screenings he so arcanely directs
upon your sleeping mind has been
scheduled for airing this time: fond 
 recollections and gentle dreams, 
or threatening nightmares riding
your subconscious dreads; immaterial,
irrelevant to his predetermined
purpose: your nightly haunting.