8-14

I cracked open.

Maybe one day I’ll learn that humans need more outlets for their emotions than writing sad captions on Instagram and setting t-shirts on fire.

I woke up with carpet imprinted on my forehead. I’ve cried off my makeup and run out of tears, but it’s still not enough. They’re caught up under my ribcage, pressing on my lungs and churning my stomach.

I was a mudslide. I was a hurricane. I disappeared from myself and became nothing but a maelstrom of all I’ve been tamping down, a swirling vortex of anger and anxiety and sadness and frustration and tequila with coarse-crushed salt.

I’m embarrassed. I’m tired and sore and my contacts have mummified my eyes in their sockets. I allowed people to see the inside. I brought my sadness out and showed it to them, and worse, I made them care for me. 

Am I no better than her, after all? A pathetic damsel.

I throw up in the sink and wash my face.

This year has broken me down to the truth, and I don’t like it. I don’t meet my eyes in the mirror. I don’t know her. She’s unhinged and uncertain and suspicious and tragic, and she annoys me. She’s too much work.

Somewhere, I’m still in there. Calm and cool and kind. I can feel her trying to get back out, but she’s caught up in the tightness in my ribs. 

She fights behind them, scratching to be free, and it’s just one more discomfort in my swirling body.