i.
You thought that the kitchen lights were almost high-beams on a freeway. Colors were crisp (too crisp), vivid as if the world were a high definition television, one with everyone scurrying around on fast forward with the volume turned up, blaring louder than your ability to comprehend. Everything was too much, too fast, too loud.

Everything was, simply put, overwhelming.

ii.
There was a word for that, you thought. A word for that feeling of detached, surreal immediacy.

Dissociation? No.
Derealization? Maybe.

Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly hold this, the whole of what this was, how it felt, in this moment, in this moment, in this—

iii.
You realized you were spiraling.

You pulled out, sharply, sharp enough to cut yourself. You looked at the blood beading on your wrist like ruby spheres of light. It was beautiful, entrancing. You could watch it forever...

iv.
There is a knife in your hand.

There is always a knife in your hand, you think, even when there isn't, when your hands are empty.

It means you're always ready to hurt someone, even when you're not, when you are empty.

v.
The world is normal again, after that.
Slowed down, quieter.

vi.
Kitchen lights are just kitchen lights, after all. How could they possibly make you think of driving? Driving fast, and furiously, reaching the speed limit and still flooring the pedal, seeing how far you could go before you ran out of gas or crashed gloriously in a blaze of light and sound and sparks and sirens—

vii.
You've forgotten where you're going with this.

viii.
You've been gone a while, you think, in that state.
You're pretty sure you're back again.

Now?
You just want to sleep.

h.f.m.