the walls are closing in on the dark, empty space that is soon to be filled up by her heavy breathing and small existence. she can't breathe, but she barely wants to anyway. she just wants to let the swarm of thoughts **** her, the exasperated breaths sneaking past her lips to wrap around her neck and wring the life out of her like an old dish towel. the walls are closing in and she doesn't try to push them away because she knows the walls will crush her. she knows the walls will crush her but they don't. she is awake and alive and she is merely standing outside of school at three ten in the afternoon, slowly breathing and effortlessly calm. no walls, yet the swarm of thoughts is still there, created through small glances and even the slightest judgmental remarks. what starts as one flake of snow collects into a billion and soon enough there is a constant blizzard happening in her mind where a desert was before, a barren wasteland in need of some feeling, in need of something to keep it alive. but not this, this is not what it wants. just some water would have been fine, but this? a snowstorm is too much. a happy drop of water was just a little thing to want, a small request. but her mind replies with a whole mass of feelings and thoughts and overthinking things until she can't feel again and then it is desert. desert then blizzard. too little then too much and no happy medium no happiness whatsoever for that matter. no in between where there is comfort. just "i need to feel something, anything at all" then "oh my god please take it away i can't handle what my brain is making up please"... she is told to just calm down, to stop overreacting, to be reasonable for once jesus christ, and then she is told to show some emotion to stop being such a downer to be positive. and those drops of water sure do come but not to the right places. they go right down her cheeks and onto that pillowcase instead of her mind. she feels too much to end it all at once but at the same time she feels too little for death to be enough. she doesn't know what to do she is scared and she is lonely inside of her brain.