Summer 2017

IT’S TIME for some laptop-closed alone time and reflection. Something I can say, for sure, is not right here. This is not right. My stomach has been tied in the same knot for so long that the things I eat are actually learning to navigate it. Everything is uncertain in a time-ripping dimension-slipping way. My jaw clenches tighter than ever.

I feel myself doing the crazy thing, saying the crazy thing. All the time now I’m with myself but not myself. A layer away, I slip back, I think, into someone’s arms, but it turns out that I just fall through them and fall and fall, counting off four digit numbers for my four selves. I say all the time that I am scared. But who hears what I say from this far away?

From one degree away, standing behind myself trying to make some happy feelings rub off on me. I don’t want to talk. It’s painful to hear yourself say what no one wants to hear. I feel like the person I probably hate.

I feel some kind of self-loathing, and it brings about these deep step-stool sobs from my shoulders and chest. The ones that go, “a-huh, a-huh, a-huh” as if you’re slouching forward down the stairs, lazy like you’ve never cared enough about anything to cry really hard. I never used to cry really hard.

Some days I know exactly what went bad and what I need to do. Some days I just start writing emails and then it feels like I could do anything, but there are days that are washed in blue that tell me to stay in bed and to leave people alone for the better. I’ve never had so many different kinds of days in one week like I do now. When I was fourteen, I remember writing down that I felt that I knew myself. I felt sure of my mind, but now I have this heart, too. A swollen thing to carry around. My heart never produced tears the way it does now – they pour out straight from my heart. When it races I’m not sure if I’m even breathing. And sometimes it’s so slow. Waterlogged, maybe.

I’m beginning to see that I’m really guided by what I feel more than what I think, which isn’t what I used to think about myself. And now I don’t feel much anymore, so nothing guides me. I just wander around, trusting the wind and my mother. I sleep with a fan on because it makes me less afraid. Why am I so afraid lately? Waiting for the snap of a twig, a black hole, the big glitch.

Routine can’t save anything. I don’t want this but I face it anyway. We face each other. I could almost kiss the version of myself that I’m standing behind. I see a road laid out in front of me: miles and miles long and covered in shit and black ice. Fuck me. Beyond the guilt and the sadness and the quick breathing and cold I feel, I’m trying to feel bravery. My hands are out for it. I’m trying to feel love. There’s still room in my heart.