Work Text:
If I hold myself still enough, I can breathe.
That’s the idea anyway, that’s the hope.
If I can just keep still enough. So I try to keep still, still so that my skin doesn’t rub against the sheets until it feels like it’s about to peel off. Still so that the sound of my muscles and bones moving doesn’t grate so loudly.
If I can just keep still.
But my heart beats so loudly.
My heart beats so loudly, and every time I think about it beating too loudly it beats faster, and every time I think about it beating faster it beats faster still. And breaths come loud and louder, fast and faster, whistling through the air, shrieking through my ears, and I want to run, but if I run my feet will pound and my bones will rattle and my breaths will come faster and my heart will beat louder.
And I can’t run from myself.
I want my heart to be quiet .
I want my heart to stop beating.
And then my brain catches up to the thought and I’m horrified because my heart will only stop if I die.
I don’t want to die, do I?
I don’t want to die, I just want out , but the only way out of my body is death.
I try to hold still. My heart pounds, pounds, pounds, like a hammer against my skull.
I don’t want to die, I just want it to stop.