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Sometimes, I just stop

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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Sometimes, I stop.

I can't do it. There's a wall, my head against it, the cool pressing up into my forehead. It should be grounding but it's not, reminding me that, without anything to hold me here, I might drift away at any moment.

Sometimes, I stop.

My breath catches in my chest, the world around me tilts, my legs shake, my palms sweat. I don't want to keep walking, the world around me suddenly alien, as if I've never been here before, even though it's very surely all ground that I've tread over time after time again.

Why's it different this time? I can't answer that question, not even for myself.

Sometimes, I stop.

I think, I dwell, I ruminate. I curl into a ball, drag the blanket over my head, try to escape to another time and place, somewhere that I don't have to think anymore.

No more, no more, no more.

I can't do it anymore. Don't do anything, stay here, do nothing. I can't hide forever but I can't do it either, can't do anything.

Sometimes, I stop.

There's no more day, no more night, only a blending of one into the other, seamless, the lines broken and trembling as if they never existed to begin with. Everything feels the same with nothing at all left to differentiate one from the other.

It's all the same and I ache for the different, a change in the day, a change in the seasons, a change in the taste of this life. One cannot sustain themselves on blandness alone, on and on, the bread enough to keep going on but not enough to live.

There's a difference between life and living and even that has deserted me.

Sometimes, I stop.

I touch the walls. I touch the sofa. I brush my fingers over the bricks of the walls. They shake but they shouldn't, trying to remind myself of the nature of my own reality. I must know that I'm not left in the past, even though it feels like the present, a hand around my throat, gripping squeezing.

No, no, no more. There's no escape and yet I have escaped, the past behind me and yet in the present too. The two are tangled and I'm tripping over and over the threads of life, scrambling and gasping, scrabbling for air that doesn't seem like it's mine to take anymore.

Breathe, please, breathe. It's okay.

I'm not there, I'm here. But that doesn't always stop.

Sometimes, I stop.

I need to break, need to breathe, sitting and waiting, the summer air washing over me. That's a good kind of pause and one that I hunger for, one where I feel lighter than ever, stems of grass pressing into my palms. There are dandelions and daisies and the summer sunshine speaks of a better time, a kinder place, the type of place where blue skies keep going and going, stretching out into infinity.

I like to stop there. That's a good place. I'll breathe, sit awhile, soak it all in.

Maybe the next time I stop, things will be different. But I can never tell.

Sometimes, I stop.

Desperation biting, cheeks streaked with tears. No one will see, no one will tell, but I'm here and I still will feel. Nothing will ever change about that. Only sometimes though, sometimes. Sometimes, maybe, sometimes.

I can do it.

I can't do it.

Sometimes, I just stop.

But I can't stop forever.