Grocery List

Content Warning: This story contains potentially triggering material, and includes themes of mental health, poverty, and substance use (alcohol and cigarettes).

Bread. I need to get bread. It's completely out. It's easy to make sandwiches when you can’t make anything else- but not if there's no bread to make them.

What else do I need to get? My cupboards and fridge have been empty for too long. I can’t live on ketchup packets and corn tortillas. No. I need to brush my hair, find some decent clothes, and go to the store.

Peanut Butter. Thank God for easy protein. It doesn’t get easier than peanut butter on bread.

Cheese slices, lunch meat. Actually, those are even easier than peanut butter on bread.

What else? I know I need more. If I don’t write it down I will try and come home with every cookie and chip that looks appetizing. I will grab an encyclopedia, hair dye, a DVD season to a show I always wanted to watch (with no DVD player at home to use to watch it) and absolutely none of the things that I actually need.

Apples. It would be good to have some sort of fruit. Bananas. Wrapped up in a skin, with the meaty fruit inside. God’s fast food. Apples and Bananas. Wasn’t that a song? A song from some long-ago kids show... “I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas…”

I should probably get a vegetable. People are supposed to eat vegetables. Carrots, I guess. Baby carrots if I have enough money to be picky.

Ranch, to go with the carrots, if I can swing it.

Bottled water- I am completely out. I need water. It is essential for living. And the water from the sink tastes like blood. Too much iron in the water.

Wine… A want more than a need, I guess. But it helps. Especially when the bottled water starts to taste like blood too.

Salt. I’m out of salt now. Who doesn’t have salt? It's a basic necessity. You can sprinkle some on your tongue when you want to taste something. You can place it around you when you need to keep things out.

Sugar. I don’t have that either. Salt and sugar both seem like basic necessities.

Cereal (something healthy, something bran).

Milk.

Oatmeal. That would be good. It’s healthy. I can have it when the milk is gone.

Milk only lasts a little while. Before you know it it's either gone or spoiled. I try to pace myself and not drink too much, and then before I know it tastes even worse than the blood-water.

Maybe I skip the milk and cereal.

Just oatmeal.

I need to grab some lotion while I am at the store. My skin is too dry to ignore anymore. I put water on my skin, it just makes it worse. I even tried butter the other night when I was desperate. It just made me smell like food. Delicious Food. Not good.

Lotion. Definitely. No matter the cost. I have put it off way too long. It might help stop the things from creeping out of my skin.

Butter too, I guess. Since I used it all up rubbing it into my skin that one night. Such a mistake…

Unscented lotion- NOT scented. I don’t want the things, the crawling things, the skittering things, the bigger, hiding, hovering things thinking I smell so good.

Paper towels. Wasteful. But easier to clean with than bath towels. No fun cleaning up grease with the towels I use after bathing. No fun using them to kill and clean all the dark, skittering things that pushed their way through my skin.

Paper towels feel so much cleaner. Clean it up, throw it away. It is even better for killing the spindly, scuttling things. I can catch and crush their brittle bodies before they are even all of the way out of my skin. Catch, crush (crunch!), throw away.

Trash bags. The bags I have left will fill up too quickly. Nothing is more annoying than trying to throw something away and there's no trash bag to hold it.

Candles. I need candles. Scented ones are nice, calming. Candles help when the lights won’t turn on. They help me breathe. Help me breathe in when my lungs are closing up.

What can I get to stop the things in my head? The things that slither on top of each other? The things that writhe, slide, wriggle, and sometimes bite? They are not as easy as the tiny things that puncture through my skin. They are so much bigger, and yet much more hidden at the same time.

Maybe the wine will help with that too. Maybe.

Make-up, foundation? To cover up the marks on my skin. The big bloody gashes where the little things keep crawling out. Foundation will not cover much of it. But maybe it will help.

I could get some eyeliner, lipstick too. Modern day battle-paint for facing the day.

Gauze. I should get gauze. Gauze to pack up where the sores open and ooze, from where the repulsive little things crawled out. What will the foundation look like on top of the gauze, if I try to hide it? I can so easily hide what is on my arms, but not the ragged holes on my face. Well. Anything will surely be better than it looks now.

Wine. Is there anything stronger than wine at the store? No. Probably not.

Cigarettes. I quit almost a decade ago. Almost quit. Mostly quit. It's like the saying goes, a smoker never really quits. Maybe it will help. The inhale and exhale.

Lighter. For the cigarettes and candles. To make the tiny fires, so I can watch the smoke that floats up to the sky.

Salt. Did I already write down salt? To circle around me. To keep away the bigger things that lurk, always at the corner of my eye. Waiting to pounce. Crouched at the end of my bed. Keep them away from me.

Benadryl, or some generic antihistamine. Helps with the itching, sometimes. It helps with the choking that wakes me up, when one of the things ends up in my throat, scratching and crawling up.

Sometimes they go through the skin at my throat. Sometimes I wake up to them trickling, sprinkling, rippling out of my mouth, out of my ears, even sometimes creeping out of my tear ducts in my eyes.

Lemons. It covers up the blood-taste in the water. Will be useful when I inevitably run out of wine.

Gas. Not groceries- but I have to get it before I go to the store. Unless I want to be stuck walking. Walking with the things that watch me from every corner, hovering in the dark, just past where I can see them.

No. I have to get gas.

Now of course. That is what I need. What I need right now. How much money do I have to actually get it?

Not enough, of course, never enough.

If only these things in the shadows would pay rent, they could stay for all I care. Climb right into my bed and snuggle, for all I care.

Instead I have to watch them slither under my bed, right next to my feet. I have to feel them breathe on my face, my neck, my ears as I try to rest.

No. No no no no no no no. I wouldn’t willingly share my bed with them for any money in the world. Not really.

How much do I have? How much do I actually have to get what I need?

Not enough.

Never enough.

Authors Note: https://988lifeline.org/ is available 24/7 for free help- by text or phone call- for anyone who is struggling or wants to support a loved one in crisis.