So, Smile. |draft|
Imagine going through each day with a headache — one that knocks at the back of your eyes.
It’s probably a side effect of the lightheadedness which skews your perception.
That accompanies a mind full of worry, fear, and this all gives your anxiety anxiety.
Nothing is ever clear, the words spoken to you take ages to pass through a confusion filter and reassemble in the brain as nonsense.
and then there’s the thousand yard stare.
Living with social anxiety for years, you know better than to stare. You do it anyway because you’re completely at the mercy of your mind.
There’s more to it, but you can’t remember right now. you can’t remember what’s happening to you at the present moment.
Your anxiety builds.
and every single day you try to quell it. Try to relish in it, try to let it encompass you so its demands to be felt will be met and it will leave satisfied.
To no avail, you take your breaths every one insists you take, as if oxygen is any match to a stranglehold on your brain.
You try to feel and you do but not really. You try to explain these paradoxical emotions but you can’t explain. You can’t find the words because they’ve been eaten by the fog.
Each morning is distant and each night full of disdain for the coming days.
But still you smile and throw in your humor when you can because being mentally ill is disappointing.
Still you go to school and try to retain the information that goes right through the stupid filter in your brain.
Still you push your body in hopes of running past the fog and
the belt on the treadmill swears its on its way somewhere
and still you smile.
Because they need it.
Because you need to.
Because physical pain gets more sympathy than mental.
Your mind can shatter and its your burden to bear. “It hurts now, but get over it, you’ll be fine someday.”
so smile.
Tip of the Nose. |draft|
It was Amber.
My apprehension,
the years of conformity.
Erasing my past from my eyes
so no one could tell.
Building up my comfort
but not letting it manifest.
It was your candles.
The rebellion
that paved the road
for self-discovery.
Hidden nudity,
games I would never play.
Those lips that burned me.
It was me.
The way a scent
tugs at your memories
and quickly evaporates.
It lingers idly by
but a smell is not an image.
It cannot be conjured by a thought - only by its presence.
And present I am not.
Ten.
I woke up this morning and thought “holy shit, I’m here! Oh wait. No I’m not.”
I wonder, with other people that have depersonalization, does time fly by? Like it goes by so fucking fast for me.
I can’t believe it’s almost April. The past seven months of me being stuck in this episode? Like WOW. seven months? I thought that happened yesterday.
But I can’t even remember what happened yesterday.
Every god damned day.
I’ve long since quit trying to tell if I’m “here” or not though so as not to let myself down when I realize that I’m not.
That’s just the pessimist in me I suppose.
I’ve run out of time
to offer to others. It’s time for me to be selfish.
Checklist:
[ ]Begin cognitive therapy
[ ]Join an anxiety support group
Animal
O, with passion and aches
Does my heart melt
Aside the lilting snow that
Beats my hair
and Swallows it down.
I, of the ground,
Gallop over hills
Whitened and soft
No longer sullied
By thoughts of slaughter.
I, of the air,
Am thickened by flakes -
My body sinks
and Greets the land
That saw my freedom
and raised me love
