nest-arrest

knocking about through the universe today. i keep bumping my elbows. sidestepping and tripping as if i'm not made of the same elemental particles.

an alien here. i cannot look at myself. i cannot move, cannot do anything that reminds me i am a living, breathing being. i cannot bear myself.

i cannot bear writing this because it means i have form and space. a certain conjunction of matter i want no part of.

i am feeling skittery and rash. i have no answers, only staccato sentences centered around this elusive subject, this personal pronoun that is too close, too familiar. i want to slip out of my skin and my shape and my awareness and slither off into the woods and the dark where i belong. she deserves it. so she thinks. she thinks, let it happen again.

i am afraid to sleep because i am afraid to dream because there are more and more bodies, more dismembered parts and i wake sweating in the early hours thinking only that i deserve this horror.

[photo removed]

it shouldn't be this way. i feel strong and i have eaten enough and there are brilliant books to read and a clean apartment and an empty evening ahead. i should not be twitchy with fear. i should not be frozen in revulsion of the sheer fact of my being alive.

i am trying not to do anything reckless. i've got the itch. two pills only, Anise. cigarettes are ok. no sharp edges, don't cross those lines. don't leave the nest. get lost in old movies. do not leave the nest.