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Mar 2018
There is a light, it's flickering a pale white blue.
The carpet is rough on my face, silence permeates the house. I should get up.
I should pull myself into personhood. My hands tremor, I let my finger tips find the end of the carpet. Skimming the floor boards shaking fingers beginning to tap tap tap out the only sound.
I used to drink the restlessness away, now I am left a craving in its place. Tap tap tap say the fingers.

Violent imagery flashes across my mind, car crashes,Β  rending metal, glass breaking, bones snapping there are sharp falls and hit and runs and stabbing on the sidewalk,Β  knife sliding into my flesh. Leaping into oncoming traffic, my heart skipping beats and laughter always my laughter. The final moment of freedom replayed over an over.Β  I can't tell you why it makes me smile, I don't know why myself.
Tap tap tap tap tap irrattic finger tips might be getting angry. Have your limbs been angry at you before?

Rolling over the popcorn ceiling swirls,
I realized a while back if I pay attention to the patterns they shift, I hallucinate mildly on most days. I think I might miss it if I were being honest. I focus on my skin, the way the air touches it, the way cold feels, if I savour this enough I almost feel high, high is almost always on the other side of sensation.
I might always be a touch high compared to how the average Joe feels. This is not a desirable state, but if you talk to me tomorrow I might say it's a gift.

I slowly stand, my knees cracking fingertips tap tap tapping up the wall. Giving up drinking was like giving up one of my last connections to my dearlyΒ  departed. Gin and alcoholism kept a part of him close to me. Medication and therapy take me further and further away from the person who knew him.

I walk barefoot, the texture of the floor boards underfoot, stepping into the kitchen I pull a wine glass from the cupboard. I want to hear it sing, I flick the glass, I hold the opening of the glass near my ear. I can feel the sound touching my ear. Soft ringing until it's quiet again, I've tried to savour the experience by listening in to the sounds of my world.
Listening to the slow crunch of a crisp apple, the sound of the city, the bubbling of the fish tank. Perfect beautiful sounds ripe with happening.
You can hear the happening of what is at all times if you choose to.

There are other ways to savour, I think it helps to be here and now, the savouring it I mean. By "it" I mean everything your senses allow you to perceive, the everything that is your sensory image of the world around you. Your brain built the image of the world, it's a reflection of you. The world is a mirror to your mind.
Often the reflection is not something I'm proud of, other times I'm exploding with pride.

I wish I could share what I've found with him, but I wasn't fast enough, I wasn't paying attention.

Attention to here and now has been the key I keep dropping and picking up.
Written by
Kathleen M  24/F/Alberta, Canada
(24/F/Alberta, Canada)   
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