The burn on my lips, the taste of blood, the aching in my jaw, all are signs that I am trying, desperately, to overcome something inside of me that is gnawing at my liver, deflating my lungs, and lobotomizing my brain.
Let me rephrase a bit. It’s the whisky that burns as it touches my mouth as I sip at it slowly. Bits of cheek and cracked lip are bitten off as I nervously fiddle in my seat. Tears, or screams, or some other unknown force inside me are trying to claw itself out of my throat, and I clench my jaw hard to keep it all in.
If giving it a name would give me relief, I would call it something gallant, something powerful and awing. Because what it really is, the mix of anxiety, undiagnosed depression, and numbness of the mind just makes me feel pathetic and lame. But, that’s what the constant gnawing is, the boxer to my lungs, and the nail hammered in my head.
It’s really not that bad most of the time. Most of the time I am content, in the best definition of the word. But sometimes, I will get the rug that I’m standing on pulled out from under me and I’m left on my ass looking around wondering why I was standing on that fucking rug in the first place. Questioning things is something I think is important, but sometimes it’s the questions that hold me over the ledge of sanity. Conditioned insecurities run rampant in my mind’s revolving door. Why do I even have that door?
Understanding that I, alone, cause the pain inside me is as easy as it is difficult. Yes, I see what I’m doing to myself with the unnecessary overthinking and worrying. But no, I don’t always feel like I want to take the blame. But, it is what I should do.
Sometimes I want to sit in the puddle of shame that I create for myself because when I get cold I realize that I should maybe stand up and find dry land. Maybe, anxiety and depression are a good thing. Without them, where is the push to get out of that puddle? Hell, what if I never realized I’m standing in one?
It does bring me relief, feeling love for my anxiety and depression. Giving them light, don’t get me wrong, hurts, but there’s also a pulse of healing that runs through me. I can feel it when I meditate. I literally can feel it expunge itself out of my stomach and up my throat and out of my eyes. It’s after the pain that I feel relief. I’ve let all the air out of my lungs, all the tears out of my eyes, and I have nothing left to do but take another breath. With that breath, I imagine my eye sockets sucking the overflowed tears back into me, down my nasal passage and into my throat. I swallow hard and enjoy the refreshment.
In(Between) Dreams 