Haunted

I watch my hands for signs of changing. They become my clear indicators of regression when I'm clawing at the earth to stay the same. I keep humming to myself, keeping calm, keeping clear. Nervous kind of humming. Swaying my foots back and forth. You know, I feel this in my fingertips, warning me, the warmth, of...of stay, constant, failing to progress.

And I'm lying there, next to you, and I think you think you're home; I feel it in your touch. Something in that haunts me. I hear my teeth run together. I think of all my wrongdoings. I can't capture this and put it on hold. I just don't have that kind of faith. Constant unrest, feeling uneasy, given any situation. I startle easily. My indoor gardener as I walk out of the door and right within his reach, coming about the corner. The woman coming around the glass doors as I walk out of the elevator. And it makes me begin to tremble, slightly, unnoticeable. Uneasy. Just hold my breath until I can lock the doors behind me, making noise all along the way. I hide behind my sunglasses, watching the man at the gas station filling his worn out car with the trunk tied closed with a yellow rope, watching him watch me. I start to hyperventilate. I think of the worst possible scenario and I play it out, all of the motions, every possible outcome. Over and over again, until I can't break away from it. Until it sticks.

Every motion, every outcome. The gardener, the elevator girl, the guy at the car with his rope.

I'm haunted by words that are said. Simple things that probably do not matter; simple things that aren't a second thought to anyone else but me. I need to be kept in the light, because this darkness is absorbing me, and it's piecing me apart, down to the very molecules of my existence.

Simple words, like a conversation about a woman who locked her child in the car, her keys inside. And how she called and the child is safe, then listening to someone going on about what that would be like...what that kind of death would entail. And typing that, just putting it the way I put it, not even detailing it like it was detailed during the conversation, I can feel my chest collapse. I can't pull out of this.

I can't watch the news because I can't watch these stories. I have this overwhelming fear. I can't handle processing the information, like I forgot how to not take it personally. I don't know how to keep it from affecting me. I am my own personal terrorist.

So you're lying there, sleeping, and I pull you in and I push you away and I tug-o-war and I'd rather break in your arms. I wanna win then lose and I wanna lose and lose. So I watch my hands to see if they are changing. Cotton wraps around me. Darkness wraps around me, and I'm afraid to sleep, nightmares that you don't know of, these things I don't tell you, the ghosts, it's all my haunted. And when I finally sleep, I don't want to wake up because I'm so tired and the sleep is safe, somewhat, and so I blow off 4:30 for warmth and darkness, hiding once more, just another way.

I can't hide here. I don't want to write about this. I want to write about anything but this, but I feel nothing but this. That and my black fingernails, watching them as I watch my hands. Waiting for a change. Waiting for my haunting to pass.