Prosthetics

Sometimes, my brain is unkind to me, Sometimes it has a mind of its own. I have so many thoughts which come in wave after wave after wave that sometimes it feels as though I am being overrun. Not all of my thoughts are negative. Sometimes I have creative tsunamis which crash over me and drag me down. Sometimes it is self-recrimination. I hear the voices of every single person that I have ever had conflict with mock me. Sometimes it is my own voice. Time feels like tar, and I am forever trapped, held still, while my thoughts taunt me, "We told you not to touch that monster, B'rer Rabbit. Now who's going to throw you into a briar patch so you can get away?" Yes, sometimes my thoughts force me to jump from the frying pan into the fire to silence them. 

I used to push the thoughts down with reading, drugs, alcohol, food, cutting/pain, computer games -- anything that would numb or hurt. Some days, the urge for oblivion burns in my veins like ichor. It sets me apart and is the very core of me that makes every good or bad thing in my life possible. It is toxic to those unprepared to handle it, and it sears me. But I have learned to breathe deeply through the pain until it recedes to a manageable level. Ventus. Spiritus. Animus. Only, breathing has always been hard for me, and it's just getting worse. There are nights when I stop breathing so many times that I wake more tired than when I went to sleep. There are days when I am sitting or working or walking when my lungs fill with tears, and rasp and choke out their sorrow. There are days and nights and evenings and mornings when I am mired in place because I can not refresh my soul. 

I know I am not alone in this. I have watched some of the people I love best be crushed until they believe that the best way out, the only way out, is to cut off their own limbs, take their own lives. So, young ones, does it get better?

It gets different. It gets duller. It gets smaller. It doesn't go away, but it gets easier to manage. Like wearing prosthetics. You learn how to find a new part of you, a new tool to replace the parts of you that have been destroyed, but adapting is not always easy. It takes time and perseverance. There is pain with progress. Old wounds heal, but the fit of new possibilities is never so complete that there is no pain phantom or otherwise. 

---

Tiny Feet

​Tiny Feet
 
(humming)
 
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
Hear them scurrying
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
Through my brain
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
All my worrying
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
Driving me insane
 
Digging and clawing and tearing to pieces
Digging and clawing and tearing it down
Digging and clawing and shredding to pieces
Scrambling and climbing and tearing me down
 
(humming)
 
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
In the dark of night
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
Bring me pain
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
All my worrying
Tiny feet (tiny feet)
Driving me insane
 
Scraping and clawing in darkness and daylight
Scraping and clawing and wearing me down
Scraping and clawing, they creep and they kill me
Scrambling and climbing and tearing me down
 
Tiny feet
Tiny feet
Tiny feet
(driving me insane)

This song, of course, was inspired by all the thoughts that won't leave me alone.

Not my song, but one I wish I'd written.