Drink me

***Trigger warnings include: self harm, grief, anxiety, and depression.***

Here I am, sitting in another room. I feel as if every room is the same, just painted over with lies and pretty fabrics. I’ve never been here before, but every wall surrounds me in thick air and I still can’t breathe. Anxiety brews deep within my aching bones. I bite my nails and feel disgusted. I contemplate chewing my lip instead, until I realize if I were to follow through with those urges, I would fall into old habits from my childhood and young teenage years, and I would gnaw over and over again until I felt the hole and tasted the blood. I never was the type to be ordinary. When I was a little girl, my grandmother, the woman who practically raised me would give me anything I desired. Coffee at age five was definitely one of my favorite past times together and her home was my sanctuary. I can still remember the distinct smell of her Amaretto creamer, hugging my senses with a bitter-sweet sensation I couldn’t quite explain back then, but that I can now remember and feel. It’s one of those smells that brings back a thousand memories with shooting stars of nostalgia. The chatter of strangers conversing over the usual topics, the typical ones that society has conformed us to, echo all around me. My brain is a wildfire with an unstoppable force of menacing thoughts, sending intensifying mixed signals at lightning speed. Every vibration feels like the sound of a brutal massacre behind my retinas,  and even silence is treacherous. Sometimes when it’s quiet, it ironically feels the loudest and the static of the world is deafening, so my body runs on panic attacks and repetitive sensory overloads. I’m a living, breathing matrix. Sometimes I forget how to breathe, did you know that was possible? I’ve forgotten how to smile, but to forget how to pull air into my lungs seems absurd. I wonder if I’m breathing too loud in this place. Who knew walking into a coffee shop could trigger my entire existence and cause me to overanalyze literally everything and anything. I hate when I do this. I hate that I hate myself. I spread love and light wherever I go, yet I can’t seem to get a grip. “Dammit Paige, Get a hold of yourself already,” I mumble. I want to rip my ears off like Vincent Van Gogh, except one wouldn’t suffice. I wonder who I would give them to anyways. When I die, leave my body with the wolves. Death is weird. Can everyone I cross paths with smell the death on me? I mean, are they capable of noticing the death of the woman who gave me life? Can they visually see I’m damaged with the permanent loss of everyone I’ve ever loved the most, or even see the darkness I feel deep inside of me. Would they even be able to recognize such unusual states of awareness with their noses stuck up in the air? Im a lifeless corpse in a little cozy nest with lattes and sugary breakfast treats. I definitely stand out. I don’t belong here. Then Again, did I ever belong anywhere? I was always the outcast for as long as I can remember, and I was fine with it. I’m not fine. I don’t belong here. I’m thin, worn out; a delicate paper origami, but not as graceful, and no matter how hard I try I can’t gain weight or love my body. I’m deteriorating. I feel invisible. I feel seen. I can never decide on anything, so I debate which is worse before I consider getting up and walking out. Half of me has been missing for years. I didn’t always hate myself every time I looked in the mirror, or obsessively and frantically think how noticeable my unappealing characteristics are to everyone I encounter; even the people I’ll probably never see again In my life like strangers passing by in cars or when I walk into a grocery store. If I said I was self conscious, that would be an understatement. So, I decided that’s not healthy- to be caught up in a detrimental mindset that just wears my entire life as some shameful peasants clothing with strange facial features I was cursed with, or blessed, the trauma of laughter and psychological torment during my entire childhood and turning over into my  adult years makes it hard to differentiate between reality and their seemingly taunting mockery that twists my stomach in a thousand knots. Sometimes I think I’m paranoid. I battle with myself on whether I’m delusional or simply aware. Awareness is survival. Here I go again, getting lost in the depths of my intimidating yet inescapable existence. I want to run, but if I do that, I know I’ll never get over the fears or reach new levels of confidence, happiness, or mental stability. This is what happens when I crawl out of the safe place I locked myself in to avoid confrontations with the monsters feeding on my past. I need to become in control  again. I can’t let myself stray too far from the present moment. It happens too often, but I’m learning I have the tools to disconnect all the short fuses inside me that flare up like fireworks on the Fourth of July over any minor thing. I’m ninety pounds but my baggage is the weight of  the Appalachians and I’m filled with rocks. There’s stones that fill the vicious void in my heart like the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Instead of wolves, I fight a variety of demons, including those which don’t belong to me, I defeat the beasts just the same as if they were mine. I’m everybody’s hero, yet I can’t seem to rescue me from me. I feel the creatures all around, I see them in the crevices of my dreams, watching me and here they’ve followed me, it appears they came to find me to avoid my greatest escape. They’re here right next to me. Their eyes widened, wrapping around me, and I can’t breathe. All I can think about is their awful hands constricting me. I cannot move, but I maintain composure like a mannequin. I tell their voices to hush, and I try to shake away the thought of how they’re waiting for the perfect moment to prey on me. I can’t let them know I’m afraid, or they’ll suffocate me, and I refuse to let my voice be silenced. Curiosity dawns on me as I wonder if anyone can see this. I start to break free from the black hole around me. I come back to reality when I begin to think about the people sitting in other booths, and I ground myself by listening to them place their favorite orders like it’s one of their usuals. Are they being attacked by secrets too? If so, they wear their masks extremely well. I had my epiphany while weakened on my knees, but I refused to fall this time. Why am I here? It all makes sense now. I’ve always loved the aesthetic sort of vibrancy that little snug coffee shops gave off. This probably stemmed from my childhood and the memories I hold close to me. I’ve always found the ambience undeniably appealing. Why did I choose to blend in like a chameleon with the common public, particularly in surroundings that aren’t the slightest bit familiar to me? After all, I’m a living, breathing, walking contradiction who stands out like a whole new species that’s never been seen to the human race, let alone understood. My life is like an endless poem, with no beginning and no end. Death used to scare me. Now more than ever, it makes me curious. It also makes me angry. I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve had to say goodbye to everyone you loved the most, or when the world, so cruel and unfair, took them without giving you the chance to even say it. Closure wouldn’t make it any better anyways. It isn’t fair. I’ve watched life steal the person who birthed the gift of life to me, as well as a person I have given life to along with several others who taught me the value and meaning of what it’s like to feel alive, and every single one that I’ve lost, I would have undoubtedly died for. I’m not dead yet because I’m a survivor. That’s what I’ve taught my children to be, and that is the ultimate lesson I learned from them. Most of society has the idea that we teach our kids how to be and what’s right versus what’s wrong, but in all reality, children teach us too. It’s in this moment I realize, in this moment, I am meant to be here sitting amongst a crowd who knows nothing about the pain or burdens that I carry with me. I study the scars on my wrists, and I no longer feel ashamed. I used to dissect my skin with sparkling thick glass and carpentry blades. I remember I started cutting when I was twelve years old, and I was just fifteen when I couldn’t sleep without feeling the blood drip down from my arms, warm with the release of pressure and a state of numbness. I work down my wrists, grazing each scar one by one, and even though I have them memorized, I begin counting them, and feeling the relief of the battles I’ve overcame. I notice my wounds have healed over the years, when they were once written and sewn with hateful words people labeled me. I am not an object. Now the pain I once etched spell out new beginnings and are stitched up with opportunities. I didn’t do it for attention, although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be noticed and unconditionally loved. Of course I wanted that, but doesn’t everyone?  Self mutilation for me went beyond that. When I would open up my skin, it was then that finally I felt relief and my thoughts would silence all at once, as I’d dissociate, staring blankly into oblivion until time stood still and I’d peacefully drift off to sleep. That was then, but I don’t live in the past anymore, although I visit there often whether it’s intentional or not. Like the rise and fall of a breath, or a sunrise to sunset, it happens everyday. I usually get stuck, but something in me feels like it’s shifting, changing. As I sit here, I discretely trace more scars on my stomach with my finger tips, feeling the relief of the battles I’ve overcame. This time, I don’t care who’s watching. My wounds sealed, but the lid that contains all my secrets will open up again each morning, like a fresh pot of coffee with the aroma of time that’s passed on by. My darkness is bold, and I drink my sorrows like they are made of caffeine. The wounds that once were carved with despair now spell out the longing for acceptance but are consoled with the morning rays of gratitude.