drabbles

on leap days

today was a leap day.

it started out with me being scraped raw, red-pink flesh exposed to open air like those three separate players' knees during our training session today. the anxiety rubs my skin until it splits and i am thrown into reality armed with nothing but desperation and fear. but i wasn't alone, not really, not as i walked out of that suffocating hall with my arms thrown around a friend and shoulder knocking against another friend's, grinning and chatting.

i crashed into someone during that fateful training session today, bruising my shoulder and her jaw. i still feel bad about it. one of our teammates fractured her finger. her knee was scraped bloody and raw, like that of two others on the opposing team. when i was buying food for her, the concern swallowed me in one bite like a giant predator from the depths of the ocean. but i wasn't alone, and i stepped out from the shadow of panic with ease, laughing alongside my friends and fussing over my friend's injuries.

i think it hit during chemistry. suddenly it was like i was an oyster pried open with blunt pliers, my vulnerable flesh exposed to the dangers of the world. it was too much and too little all at once, and i wished to dissolve into smoke, drifting formlessly and free of worries. but i still wasn't alone, as i opened the stash of candy i had kept sealed under my table purely for bad days such as then and shared one with my seat partner.

it was better during english. we were given time to work on that project, and i shook the clinging shadows with laughter, loud and clear. the freedom was like a breath of fresh air, and i felt formed. like someone had carefully collected the smoke i had combusted into and gathered it into a glass bottle. it was nice. i hadn't laughed that much or that hard in a really, really long while.

after school was training for a math competition. it was really nice, too. i laughed hard and long with my friends while we struggled over questions. the anxiety curled tiny tendrils over my shoulder, around my waist, by my neck, but i remained out of reach in the bright sunlight. i stayed for another twenty minutes after, hanging out with a close friend and leaving a hopefully thoughtful message in her classroom for my level mates.

i guess it's just a little hard to keep staving off the darkness without company? it's nothing serious, really. it's just that there's so much work due so soon and so much barely restrained hatred i have in my heart and there was an exclamation point behind your email and your text even though i never saw one back before everything happened. it's just the shadows creeping in, right? to be honest, I've been feeling myself slipping throughout the day. i fell asleep for 5 minutes in physics class. i felt my fingers desperately gripping onto the slippery edge around or after lunch, maybe? but i hadn't been alone then. the shadows were warded off with laughter and warmth and light.

it's just that I'm alone now and the thoughts are drowning and buzzing and dragging and i just hate it all. i saw your text and froze for a good few seconds because your tone was just screaming wrong wrong wrong and then i clicked into my inbox on my computer and there was that same damned exclamation mark innocently trailing your message and it hasn't sat right for the last half hour now. there's so much work but I'm trapped here and it drives me mad, and i just want to escape it all, want to drown myself in the bliss of distraction so i can ignore the shadows and thoughts.