What right now feels like:

(In case you were immune to emotion)

It’s like an ache has been contained in an orb, but that orb has arms [think a childs drawing of a sun]. That orb has been placed in the center of my head, and radiates (again, like a sun). So my calves are affected. My finger-tips are affected. A deep throb. It doesn’t hurt, not a physical pain. It feels like my limbs are too far away from my body. I can’t curl them into myself. I can’t contain them, enough.

Rest my head on the back of the leather cab seat. And cry. I was never prone to public displays of emotion. But this is silent, and the radio is on. The Beatles, ‘Let It Be’ thrumming over my body, moving on its own accord.

I don’t want to eat anymore. I can’t imagine dreamless sleep, which is what I yearn for. I hang my head, or throw it back. It is a terrible agony that afflicts the quiet. I feel my eyes close tight. I don’t will them open. I am happier alone in the dark of inside myself.

All that gleams is a lie. Making love with little lost boys was always a mistake.

And it is so simple, to some. This emotion that comes with the ripping open of a metaphorical ‘heart’. Really, the heart has nothing to do with it. It is the brain. It’s my brain. It’s my brain I hate. Shut up, won’t you? Just for a fucking second? Let me walk down the street without cursing my body or worrying over nothing. We only have one life, right? Well I have unconsciously chosen to live mine, with an over-protective, abusive, husband of a mind. It’s snaps at me to shut up in the midst of a conversation I might contribute to. It orders me to exercise more, because you’re not, no you’re not. You never will be, good enough. It clamps down at my hands, leaves my nails blue and veins showing through.

I wish I could hate someone else, instead of this part of me. I wish I had the ability to miss someone, without fucking them first. I wish I could be the ‘norm’, sometimes.

I never want to leave the safety of my duvet and little room, with it’s mix of flowers in a water glass. I don’t want to leave my house.

How can I start a job like this? How can I function acceptably like this?
TN

To And From [Classes With Door Numbers]

My heart speeds and slows throughout the day like a painful cymbal below my neck. At night I feel it shakes my sheets. I toss and turn. Dreams begin and end and I complete sleep, restless. When I said I had no faith in prescriptions and medications, I neglected to mention I also abhor them. Fingertips swell on the plane ride home, headache burns at my temples, matches the flame-stained crop of messy hair I am pursuing each month with more chemicals and colours.

Red hair must go. I don’t want to be looked at anymore.

Cross my legs to a circle of strangers my sister lives with. A tiled room and casual clothes. 55 minutes dedicated to a family dynamic I have lived with and lived without and cursed out-loud. I pour out my side, while my mother lies through her teeth, pushes at my barricades and exposes me. Spat ‘Oh, because it’s all about you, isn’t it?’ And silence reigns supreme, certain I hear a gasp. I don’t apologise for an honesty I have kept inside, while the prominent female figure denies, and denies, and denies. I do not let a single salty sign of my distress grace my cheek at any time. Sibling cries in time with the smothering motherly figure to my left, I keep my jaw clenched. Not through lack of empathy or sympathy or love. I am keeping her safe. I am the wall between the never-ending guild-inducing and frame-reducing female we grew to mimic. And all the mind-games I could smear across the silence. All the times I left this little blonde girl to fend for herself, forearms bare and raised. She asks why I think she cannot fend for herself, do I think I am stronger than her? I don’t. We are the same weakness, but I react with rage, where she reacts with outward pain. In the end, I said, I want to keep what’s mine and doing so well, girl that I am closest to, and love the most, behind my sturdy and studded figure. Because I don’t care if the mother detests my scowl and cruel words, as long as I protect the shaking, self-hating sibling.

She cries, I feel twisted at my middle. Every bone-end aches and rubs the wrong way. Then it cries. And I purse my lips and try to keep from rolling my eyes.

I wanted [until it stung, until it burned!] to curl her body up, keep her behind my cheekbone, let her peer through my eyes but not expose herself to potential harm. I wanted to push my fingers through the back of her neck, collect the damaged pieces, let them bite at my palms, but keep them from her.

I want you to be happy, stay here. Don’t come home. To come home to her. Stay here with your cookies and your group meetings and your vegetable garden and shared meals. Stay here with the photos of you and I on the pipes on your walls. Stay here or stay away.

Just

Telling my doctor I can’t climax because of the meds she’s put me on. She wets her lips and looks at me like she’s about to tell me something about her personal life, but then falters. She has thin hands. Thin hands with thick creases riddling the surface. I’m staring at every feature of hers apart from her eyes. Because she’s known me since I was eight. And now I’m telling her about my sex life. And I don’t really want anyone to think about me having sex.

It’s one of those moments where your face curls up by itself, and you start doing noise-making things like bashing your teeth together.

And yes, this is personal. And no, I don’t care.

On another relatively similar note. I’m in the ladies bathrooms, staring idly at one of those sanitary disposer bins. Perchance, overhear a conversation between two older [but not old] ladies. One asks how the other is, the other says ‘Oh good! Got my period though. But I actually like getting it now, after going so long without it, makes me feel like I’m a woman again.. How sad is that?’ And they both chuckle along together.

Sometimes I forget I’m a woman. I think I’m a big mismatch of old and young parts. Like my wrists could be old, but the shape of my face makes me look infantile. I am a big nasty ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle.One that no one can complete. Because it just looks too odd to be correct.

Remember when my face was heart-shaped? Yeah. Good times.

Seeing my crazy sibling in 6 days. Latest message from her - ‘Dude. I’ve been drinking this homemade mint lemonade, and I just took a crap and it smelled like mint!’ I replied ‘DUDE IT’S YOUR TURN TO TEND TO THE FUCKING WORM FARM!?!’

The clinic she’s in [Ashburn], have a worm-farm. And they let the crazies bake cakes. It doesn’t sound all that bad. She went clothes shopping with three anorexics the other day. She’s a curvy pocket-edition goth. The thought of this makes me giggle.

TN