Dance to This [kth]

t w e n t y

ミ★
twenty
❝paranoid beginnings❞
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Sleep for me is an absent concept drowned by unknown tomorrows and passing yesterdays. The yellow streetlights that once cascaded into my dorm from the skewed blinds have now turned into yellow beams of sunrise rays. I have no control over my thoughts when I'm asleep, and that frightens me. Every time I close my eyes I see Bitna, and the image causes an aching in my stomach. Consequently, I can't eat. I feel sick thinking about where I am— here, at Loomis.

The strangeness only grows by the very seconds I sit here in my desk chair. My fingernails are gnawing at the chipped wood of my desk as my thoughts run into the wall along with my stare. A man, she said. I can envision a dark shadow behind her as she approaches the staircase. . . it causes me to blink away from the wall, only to focus on another idle object in my room. There is a ringing in my ear, and my mind tricks me into thinking that it is getting louder. The anticipation for the sound to suppress itself never comes.

A deep exhale is shaky when it escapes me. My lack of sleep has caused my under eye to twitch slightly, but I almost don't notice due to my occupied focus on my nightmare-ish thoughts. Who can help me? I don't know who to confide in. I have to admit that I am weary of telling anyone what Bitna told me. . . I don't want attention drawn out of it and put on to me. There is so much unknown, and so little I can do, that the thoughts are eating me up inside.

No more nice girl, no more nice girl, no more nice girl, no more nice girl, no more nice girl. . .

Her scratchy words are what is ringing in my head. She gets louder and louder, like I am about to implode within myself, but then stops. I blink again, and direct my attention this time to my laptop. I have had a document open for several hours as I attempt to write my English midterm. I have been rotating from writing this to studying the many diagrams and terms for Anatomy. Given I have not been able to focus in English class during our discussions, creating a thesis about the narrator in the novel The Yellow Wallpaper is deeming to be strenuous. I have written a few pages, yet I don't think I could read them back to even myself.

I have no motivation to care. I drag the file into my submission box and feel overcome by emptiness. My eyes are beginning to burn from the illumination of my laptop, but I continue. My fingers roll over the smooth trackpad to click on my other classes, only this time, when I reach forward to grab my Anatomy notebook, the dusk lighting in my room allows my attention to pair to my wrists. My oh so swollen and discolored, fragile wrists.

What would my father think? No. My arm drops onto the surface of my desk and I close my eyes with a sharp breath. He doesn't get to dictate how I feel; he can't do anything this time. That doesn't mean, though, that going against him doesn't affect me. I'm bathing in secrets and lies.