I spent the morning flat on my back in my bed, pain radiating from hip to shoulder and every movement worsened by the limbs of a small child pressed into my ribs. He had crept in sometime in the early morning hours when the world was still tucked gently under darkness like a warm comforter. I don’t know if it was a nightmare that spooked him but I lifted the blanket like an invitation and he scampered up my side and nestled in. Around 3 am, I heard the moaning, that deep guttural pain that …
Mental Illness
When I Am Still Unfine
My breath comes in short bursts of white smoke. My heaving chest is an engine blowing exhaust into the frost. I lean over the porch hyperventilating, watching my tears hit the snow beneath my feet making tiny indentations, pinhole hollows searing the purity of a fresh snowfall. I feel a hand on my shoulder and my son pushes a cloth towards me to wipe my nose and eyes and the vomit from my lips. I squeeze my eyes shut tight causing tears to spill harder down my cheeks and puncture the pristine …
When You Feel Hunted by Anxiety
Light breaks in through the window and draws a slanted square on the floor. I dip my bare toes in it and stand facing our back porch. The pines swoon under the blush of evening as the sky blossoms in lavender and pink. I don’t know how long I stand there but my toes are soon planted in darkness again. And this is when the thundering begins, the trampling like hooves against my ribcage, extinguishing my breath. One moment I am taking in the beauty of the blazing sunset, the next I am a stampede …
