there’s a buzzing in my ear, so distant i can barely feel it at all, and that sinking in my gut: it’s not going away any time soon, is it? there’s nothing i can do to stop it, as the quicksand envelops me.

i eat it for breakfast. run into it at work, watch it slither through the empty spaces on the midterm exam, study it and worship at its paper mache hands, because this is all i know how to be.

but it’s fun! and it’s great! and normal people get obsessed too, it’s just a passing phase! i think my mindset’s just all wrong, but i’m sure that’ll change.

it brushes my hair, and follows me home, burns out my headphones with a dull, myopic drone. pins me up against the wall in a desperate chokehold, and it won’t stop until my eyes are tired, and cold.

but if i run fast enough, the pounding in my chest will not be from fear. i’ll get my shit together, and i’ll stop doing this, iron out all my mind’s ugly little creases out into a flat, freshly laundered sheet.

and there’s something i should be doing. someone i was supposed to meet. but it doesn’t matter. this is all there ever was to me, and maybe if i just watch another episode, the universe will quietly burn, burn, burn out to nothing around me.

and by tomorrow, i’ll have forgotten this ever happened. i’ll be alice down the rabbit hole, or maybe sleeping beauty. yeah. i want a castle, and a prince, and some bird friends to wake up to. i want a calendar and a laptop with a fully charged battery, so i can make some fucking sense of this, and teach myself to always be wary.

of pretty things that make my heart swell with pride. of new people, and new things, and that look i get in my eyes. because this thing is perfect. i want to drown in its holy-water hues. i want to fight wars at its side. i want to not be myself for just one. more. night.

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So, my whole life I’ve had this really bad tendency to get super fixated and obsessed with things, for potentially years at a time, and then suddenly get bored of them out of nowhere. And in part, that fixation has been what’s allowed me to work really hard, or learn about things in a really in-depth way, and pursue things without any doubts. But also… yeah, not always the best habit, because oftentimes I can’t tell if a new interest is something I really want to pursue long-term, like writing, or if it’s just a passing phase, because I never can tell the difference until the feeling fades away altogether. Sometimes I do that with people, too–and it feels really awful and sad, because these people who I thought I loved with my entire heart and soul and wanted to be a major part of my life turn out to just have been another obsession. And once the feeling fades, there’s not much I can do, you know? Like it or not, I have no choice but to accept how I feel.

It’s exhausting and frustrating and makes me feel like I’m not in control of my own mind at all, or anything, like I’m just totally at its whims, which hasn’t been the best thing either. I’m not sure if there’s a medical diagnosis for that, I’m still really figuring out how to manage this whole thing, but I honestly just thought it was this sign I was nothing more than a lazy, terrible person who could never be trusted with anything for so long, and it’s taken a lot of thinking to realize that it’s just that my brain works a bit different from other people’s, and takes more effort to manage.

Lots of love,

Lorna

i’ve always loved the beach, and how gorgeous it looks when wind whips through the trees, as the ice-cold waves crash, and roar, and soak through my jeans.

or how sometimes, if i close my eyes, i can pretend i’m the only person left in the universe. just for a little bit. scream at the sky until i’ve got nothing left to give.

which is just… a really melodramatic way of saying that i don’t think i can do this. and i’m curling into myself, i’m rotting into the ground, and holding onto history by a thread.

so i’ll hold it like a sad, half-rotten seashell, in my frozen palms. and please, just give me something to write. anything. a wilting sonnet, or a sleepy haiku.

and pull me back to shore. because the water is rough, and cold, and i just want to go home. where everything was safe, and warm, and everything makes sense.

but i don’t even know where that place is anymore.

i know this. i swear, i do.

so i will untangle this knotted mess. i will sit on my bedroom floor, for hours on end, searching for an answer i don’t think i’ll ever find. but god knows, i’ll try. god knows i’ll fight. i’ll do my best. i’ll cry out, until my voice cracks, and the starving vultures descend.

but can you really blame them? because at the end of the day, i mean… they have to eat too. and if i am the fledgling that never learned to fly, then leave me behind if it’s what you have to do.

and i will find myself, in rough drafts, and journal pages. i will find myself, and i will lose her, too. i will walk in endless circles, tracing footsteps back to my poisoned roots.

because i’ve never been good at letting go. have i? always holding on tight, to worn-out sneakers, and crumpled-up pieces of scrap paper. even as they pile up around me; an ocean of bitter memories, filling up my room. but i think it’s time to let go, now.

time try something new.