Hurts Like Scabs (4.17.17)

You walk into a pitch dark room,
The only light from the open door you came through.
The stale scent of stagnant water hits you first,
Then a tang, like metal, sinks inside your nostrils.
The air is tangible and cold, still it is too dark for you to see.
You recognize the ground is concrete
At the same time you realize you've lost your shoes.
The chill sets deeper in your bones,
You notice you're without your clothes
Completely exposed to this endless dark room.
Through the 'you' shaped shadow you see a pile
Dead center in the room.
Every cell screams for you to stand still.
The grit from the floor digs into the souls of your feet,
Still you push forward into the shadows.
With a creak and a snap, the door closes behind you,
As you knew it would.
So there you stand in the pitch,
Shade coalesces into bonds,
The already cloying air clots further,
You can feel it like memory foam sandwiching you still.
Nakedness, cold fear, and alone.
Wetness rolls down the side of the hollow of your cheek
You're crying-
You didn't even know.

Don't Panic. Full Stop. (9.7.16)

Don’t Panic.
A mantra well spread
Throughout the the two lobes of my head
Like Jam and PB on bread.
Don’t Panic
A phrase repeat,
Words, simple words,
That turn brave men to meat.
No, Don’t Panic.
There is so much left to do
Feel the heat course through you,
Oh of course this would happen too.
Panic,
Yes Panic.
Sets in quick and sick
Can’t respond to a text
Too nervous to stand or sit.
I’m taking shallow breaths through my nose
Panic spread from head to toe.
Panic. Don’t Panic.
Panic.
Oh No.

As I've Grown.

As I’ve grown,
I’ve witnessed countless tragedies.

Whether it was guns or bombs,

In person or on T.V.

The world is a better place,

This much is true.
Less deaths thanks to disease,

Less things to kill you.

As I’ve grown,

I’ve come to disagree.

The mathematicians must not see

The world I see.

Graphs say the world is getting better.

Crime is going down,

The ocean is going up,
The shoreline is getting wetter.

But as I’ve grown.

The only things I see,

Are wars on drugs,

On terror,

On me.

From the time I was born,

In 1997,

I can’t count the number of

Funeral processions.

As I’ve grown,
I’ve seen people cry.
Watching millions of innocents die.

I ask the world,

Now that I’m 18,
What changes are left unseen.

Now that I’m grown,

I need to know,
Just where the future will go.
-H

Seek Medical Attention.

I have a habit.
A very sever habit of staying up for days at a time, and allowing exhaustion to crash over me like a wave. I will stay up for 20 hours and sleep for 2, then repeat until the weekend. Then, and only then, will I crash for 16-24 hours.
I never figured out why I did this, but it's been happening since I was a very little girl. When I was six, I would lay in bed until midnight, then I would creep into my grandpa's lap and watch some R rated movie. I would watch stories of women seeking revenge. I would watch stories of warlords reigning over their territory.
As I got older, the habit grew. With the dawn of the Internet, I used my sleepless nights to learn. Mostly words, sometimes different ideas. I attempted to teach myself other languages and got pretty far in it too. I would watch different stories. Ones of love and heroic sacrifice.
Now I am older still. I sleep less frequently than I did before, I chalk it up to safety. I never feel safe enough to sleep. I don't live in an environment where I feel it's okay to shut down, so I don't until I push myself to the shore of exhaustion.
I want to sleep. Go to bed at eleven, wake up at seven and repeat the process.
But then I feel like I would miss the night and all its charms. The way silence sounds at 3AM. The way hysterical laughter feels after 24+ hours without sleep. I know it isn't good to force yourself into mini comas, but what else could I possibly do.
-H

3:30AM, The Bastard.

Panic seizes my body. As I tremble in unconceivable fear, I move to my altar. I pull out salt and quartz and everything I've ever heard helps with anxiety and I top it with a pretty shell. My incantation is desperate and simple. A prayer to whatever heaven will hear me.
"Let this go away, allow me to be calm."
It's three AM and I cannot sleep.
I hear little noises, the air kicking on or a bag blowing over because of the fan. Each sound reverberates and creates a new shockwave of panic and fear. I attempted to drown this out with nature sounds and other music, but the terror just grows. I dig deep to steel myself. I know nothing is going to hurt me, but the silence is unbearable.
I text a friend, desperate for a response. Anything to keep me busy until the sleep aid kicks in.
There is no sound from my phone.
I'm so damn scared, I hardly know what to do with myself.
-H.

(Think Thoughts): Writing Words.

Hello Gentlefolk,
It is I your, sometimes late and always flirty, leader.
I'm thinking about calling all my personal posts (Think Thoughts). Not sure about it yet, so that's subject to change. Whatever they end up being called, you will be able to find them tagged on the upper right corner of your screen. With all the other words, like 'writing' and 'metaphysical'.
What thoughts may I be thinking today? Well, I'm on a sort of mini vacation. It's honestly more like purgatory before I get sent back to earth because I reaaally fucked up. Kidding, earth is amazing and we should love it and all its inhabitants #spreadpeace. I decided that I wasn't going to spend a year of my life in exchange for community college, I would instead undertake independent study and finish in three months.
That's just been on my mind, as well as the thoughts of kids wanting to be the 'Next Kurt Cobain' because it seems tragic and beautiful. Yeah, you probably guessed, but I wasn't talking about K.C.'s major influence on the grunge movement of the 90's.
My brain has been pretty fuzzy lately, partially because I've been really struggling with my mental illness. As well as the whole 'Giant Choices That Will Influence Most Of My Life' thing. Oh yeah, I'm totally sick right now. Which anyone who's followed my hop from blog to blog knows is hilarious.
I'm pretty much losing my longest standing support system because of these decisions. My knee jerk reaction was to say,
"Fine, it's not like I want them in my life anyway."
Then I thought about the consequences of my actions and the fact that isolation will only make problem A worse (Mental Illness will hereby be known as Problem A.) Now I'm left reeling.
Lucky me I have such great friends, they swooped in and told me to
1) Screw Them

• They decided that they didn't want to support me, that's not my fault. 

2) Breath

and to finally
3) Believe In Myself

• Let's face it, I'm pretty rad. My friends are more rad, and cool sharks are even more rad. But I digress. I keep getting all junked up with freaking out that I forget to have fun. So the most rational answer? Believe in my radness. 

Those are the thoughts I'm thinking right now, among other things.
Pretty tame compared to other blogs, I think.
-H.