They’re circling. Crashing. Clattering inside my brain. My teeth are grinding – my jaw biting and crushing. My forehead is a rocky cliff face, steeling itself against battering storm after battering storm. Solid and strong. Yet vice-like. Somehow painful. I breathe – slowly. An attempt to cease this storm. Or least abate it. I feel like I am drowning. Not being pushed under. Nor pulled. Squeezed. Except I will never drown. Just have these brutal sensations as constant companions.
They are back. The near-opaque droplets forming a charcoal cloud. Visually impenetrable due to their collective volume. The outside barely audible. The glutinous, yet lustrous, burgundy mass, all arms and hands – heads – hundreds – thousands – reaching for my arms, my chest, my neck. The tiny hands of hands of hands leaving their slimy residue. Making for my sanity. Forcefully pushing its agenda on me. Seeming to gain – yet in reality, the motion in and of itself – near-groping – yet not sexual – causing the sensation of terror. Yes – the suctioning infinite miniatures hurt more by despair than by tact. Instilling panic, regardless of my knowledge that I am not in physical danger.
The two together dance. No. Wrestle. Painfully make themselves known to me. Not initially. The crushing confusion and/or lack of understanding come first. The quagmire – my faithful companion. Sometimes he cradles me. Delays my awareness. I only realize I am in his arms when the rate and depth of my sighing, tip me off. Then the blanket; the dark, yet fluffy cloud; engulfs me. I have not caught it in time. I am down. The down I am familiar with. Not quite comfortable. So far – survivable. The up gives me some time. Time in the sole company of down. And I forget. I don’t know how. I forget. That up often follows down. The shaking, pacing, nervous, twitching up. The mix. Trashing against each other. Against me. This is so much worse.
It seems the two cannot coexist, but often they do. A horrible feeling. Awful feelings. Up. Down. Both. Again. Over. Again… The nightmare of the up wins out. My mind. My soul. They are his. The inviting down is present but weaker. With down, I am foggier, more dull, existing. Appearing outwardly lazy. The up is excitable, shaky, hyperventilating, pacing, cruel. It cannot be unnoticed once it is noticed.
It’s all just shite really. If I wallow in the down for too long, danger waits. The to-and-fro ensures life – or at least makes life more likely.
Running Half Empty 