a moment

i can't breathe sometimes

earbuds are cold, grounding. shells plasticky smooth, white on black and perfect, perfect. they press beats into my bloodstream and slowly i can’t hear the sounds around me and all i feel is drums and bass and rhythm, i don’t need to close my eyes when the noises overload anything else and i can exist, floating, in the void of sound. piano reaches in and pulls a lace blindfold over the blur of my eyes, tender, gentle, a world with lines blurred by quiet thread sewn around hearts and looping, looping, until my organs’ operations are no longer plagued by the awareness with which my thoughts chase them. it’s slow. quiet. nothing but me, in the sky, while the hairs on my skin can’t feel and my eyes perceive no light but my own, no gravity weighing down my bones.

five seconds.

five.

four.

three.

two.

open. everything bursts. cotton threaded lace tears off my face and i am wild, rabid, too aware, perceiving too much, overdosing on existing. it is not quiet. it is not calm. look up at me, don’t look up at me, it doesn’t matter because you can hear the roaring tides of my breaths, up and down and up and down, shaking with the earthquakes of years to come and too much, too much. as if my form has forgotten it’s function, i must coach it, slowly, gentler than little league, back into it’s rhythm. my eyes dart, up and down, back and forth, scurrying along the blurry edges of my vision, desperate for an anchor, finding only pointing fingers and knowing eyes, because everybody is watching, all the time, the security camera in the corner sees me just as much as everyone else, making a fool of my one hundred somethingeth day taking this train, and the earbuds are warm now, heated by the flames digging into the delicate shells wrapped around my face, they do not ground.

no, they are pushing, invading, crawling into my mind and twisting at the dials of paranoia creeping in, and i can’t hear the kind woman next to me gently ask if i’m alright, but i can hear my breath. shaky breath in. two measures. everyone’s looking. exhale. exhale again, because you can’t get all the air out when you spent less time exhaling than you did waiting to inhale again. everyone is looking at me and for the love of god, someone knock some fucking sense back into my lungs, because the rhythm shoving itself and prying at the tears in my veins is slowing down, because i don’t know what i’ll do when the doors open, because i want the lace back, because i never used to have this problem, because, because, because. i just want to breathe.