A Loud Mind

”Are you coming tonight?" It was such a simple question, though it killed every thought in my mind with the similarity of a reaper taking someone’s life. She asked me a question that could be easily answered, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t answer her question because a million more flooded me in a cold flash. Unanswerable questions that only the future could resolve. I looked up and shrugged, my eyes refusing to meet hers. “Okay then, I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Marie said, gathering her things and parting ways with me. My feet were grounded into the cement which I wasn’t sure was even dry, for my body was sinking into it. Like vines, my thoughts began to grow abnormally and twisted. Instead of bearing a beautiful and ripe tomato at the end of those vines, I bore my wilting brain. I slide my headphones on and begin to walk. I have no intentions of going anywhere, but my body keeps dragging my tired feet to a destination I don’t know exists. Why can’t I breathe? Was it the rain that poured upon my head, or my loud mind? If I arrived at that party tonight, would I go home traumatized? A loud mind often caused me to resist any temptations of living my life or having fun. The rain hit me harder, leaving tear-like stains upon my arms. The music in my headphones stopped and I probably ruined them because of the water, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing anymore, I just watch my blurry feet take me to a place of unknowns. Where am I going? What will happen if I go to the party? Will I meet friends or lose them forever? Thump after thump my consciousness began to ache with anxiety. Mirrors are placed strategically in my brain, reflecting each thought against the other. I want to carve out a hole in my head and replace my brain with an eye. I see beautiful ideas but think tragic and humiliating things instead. If only I could think what I saw, but I am wretched. My face is wet and I can’t tell if they are tears or rain, and I like that. I like knowing that my sadness isn’t distinguishable in the beauty of a storm. I wish that I could go to the party tonight and maybe live like a normal teenager, but instead, I was staring at a gas station with pruned fingers. I’ll go to the party, maybe have a drink. No, someone might spike it and then no one will look at me again. I might have fun. I tugged at my hair and like a campanile ringing its bell, my sobs rang out. Ugly sobs, so ugly I wailed even more. “Are you coming tonight?” God, maybe I will; maybe it’ll fix me. I often kept to myself and was personally confined into my room. It had a lock on the door and everything. The world didn’t have a lock and I truly wish it did. Hundreds of outcomes; disturbing things could happen if I left my room. I couldn’t let anyone yearn for my vulnerability as they did to a diamond, it was precious and pure like a virgin moon. In my small, secluded, and locked room I could do anything I wanted without judgment or fear of dying. Talking to Marie today was a risk. I risked my life to be asked a question outside as the sun dug into my skin. The heat of the sun brought me closer to cancer which was closer to death. I can’t imagine how awful the number of risks was to go to a party. A party with drinks and men and drugs. I pity myself for my hatred of the world. Hatred can kill faster than a bullet, and war can back my claims. The sky welcomes me now with a gleaming light hiding behind the clouds and the rain is gone. I thank Earth for giving me a warm light without killing me. I can’t risk my life for fun, I’m not going to go to the party. I’m too afraid to die. I think that I am strong for stepping away from death, I am my own heroine. I don’t know if I truly believe the words that I say, but it’ll have to do. I have my mind set on reading in my room and I’ll stay there for as long as I want. Yet, I feel conflicted. Conflicted that I might meet someone there who could save me. Someone underneath the mirror ball who could bring me to parties every night and let me shake in their arms. No one wants me. I walk back to where Marie asked me that question. That question made me continue to dread life, or rather, death. My eyes are fixated on the place where I stood so pitifully. Marie knows I struggle with my mind, though she asked me to go to her party. Does she hate me? Does she want me dead? That same cold feeling grabbed my lungs and constricted them like a snake. I sit, the questions in my head making me dizzy and nauseous. I must have gotten food poisoning, my stomach can’t possibly be hurting because I’m afraid. I am so pathetic. I put my hands to my chest, but I don’t feel that familiar thud. The time has come where I die. I brace for the reaper, but instead of my thoughts it had previously killed, it will be me. Nothing happens and my hands are still gripping my silent chest. Maybe it’s okay that I’m slowly dying, I can now be free of my absurd and thundering process of thinking. I am sitting awkwardly, not dying. It’s a sign I’ll die tonight if I go to the party. I hesitantly stand up, my hands letting go of the right side of my chest. I began to think of a tornado. I not only think of one, but I can feel myself in it. Smack in the center of it, where nothing is hurting me anymore. I lift my hands to the left side of my chest instead and I feel the familiar badoom, badoom, badoom, of my heart. I laugh at my idiocy and I let the tornado pick me right up. I swirl around and instead of seeing broken buildings and dead bodies, I see shattered darkness being tossed and thrown. They collide so elegantly into each other and it’s almost pretty. I open my eyes which I didn’t notice I had closed. I can breathe now. The snake has let go of my lungs and found different prey. Prey that’s less fragile than I am and has more meat on its bones. With carefulness, I stand and observe the trees around me. They look more different than I remember. The trees seem incongruous and unreal, but they have a twinge of an enchanting look. I stagger to the closest tree and run my fingers across the crooked bark. I press my cheek against its roughness and sigh. Not a normal and relieving sigh, but an exhausted one. A sigh I need to help distract me, one to merely fill my worn-out body with the oxygen it craves. Reaching into my pocket, I lift my phone out. I bought the latest one in what felt like a fever dream. I was afraid at the time that I would be made fun of if I didn’t have the newest phone I possibly could. I remember the questions in my head that day. What if I break it right when I buy it? What if a new phone will come out again and I won’t have the money for that one? I cover my mouth with my hands, holding in the oxygen I almost wasted on my fear of those memories. I might need that oxygen for when I die. I see a message on my phone from Marie and instantly I’m bent over, gagging. “Hey, you coming tonight?” I stared at those words and heaved over the grass, and my God, the grass was green. I dug my fingers into the ground and watched as the gap under my nails filled with dirt. “No.” I typed back but deleted it. It was too blunt and Marie was sensitive. I could never hurt anyone purposely even though I am hurting more. I feel forced to respond kindly though my mind is mean and spews cruel words at me. I continue to type, delete, type, delete, and continue until I feel even more hopeless than when I first read the message from her. I convince myself I have a loud mind, though my mother sews different words into my head. “Clear problems, probably disturbed,” She says ruthlessly with precise stitches into my bruised mentality. “No, obvious panic and anxiety.” My psychologist said to me in private the next day, his teeth were as crooked as the bark I’m staring at. Those words petrified me so I told my mother he was a pervert and I never returned. I’d rather allow the woman who birthed me to believe I’m psychotic than know who I really am. Someone who can never rid that anxious feeling that hooks onto my feet like I’m a fisherman’s bait. Instead of being released out of the water to be eaten, I’m pulled down into the depths of the ocean where no one can reach me. My response is the white void of the screen beneath Marie’s message. I stare at the empty space and her face pops up instead, she’s calling me. I groan and pick up, she’s going to ask that dreadful question again. “I need to know if you’re coming, I’m buying the food right now.” She said. She had an edge in her voice that I couldn’t quite decipher. She’s angry at me. She’s never going to speak to me again, is she? I cover my mind with insulation trying to block out the sounds. “Um,” I say, my voice hoarse and ragged from my sobs just a few minutes earlier. I feel that awful sensation rising in my throat again and my nose is burning. Don’t make a fool of yourself. So, I don’t. Can you tell her "no" without making Marie hate you? So, I don’t. “I guess I'll come.” I hang up before I hear any words and I feel awful about it. "I guess I'll come". That moment instantly replays in my mind over and over trying to search for where I'd messed up. But suddenly, the tornado has passed, the saltwater of the ocean leaves my eyes, and my mind is quiet. I can finally see those glistening tomatoes flourish at the end of the vines.