dysp·ne·a

noun difficult or labored breathing

i am telling this girl about my condition. i don't know why i choose her but i guess it's because she insists i call her sister and rubs little circles on my back to soothe me while i try to fall asleep. i don't have a label for it, not really anyway, i hardly think it fits the bill – mine is a different kind anxiety.

one that boils right under the surface, replaces the blood with lava, circulates through 100,000 kilometers within my small body, and leaves me without an embrace when it has the capacity to wrap itself around the earth two times and a half.

the vapor licks the inside of my skin, and the largest organ in my body displays its own beauty with bitten nails, worn down cuticles, and white fading marks where i scratch myself
 

layers upon layers of protection, but what can protect me from the spies and traitors within my own body? 

 

i can see the dead cells fall to the ground, every white mark, blooming at the tip of a blunt nail–

 

i wish it was that easy to get rid of all things dead and unusable, and that no matter how brute we were, they still ended up catching sunlight through angled blinds and dancing with the millions of other dust particles in a room

 

i wish we all had elegant ends and photograph-worthy last minutes, maybe a lingering smile in the face of oblivion or the ecstasy of being surrounded by fellow revolutionaries

no, mine is a different kind of anxiety, it's the depression in the head of a devout believer who is obviously neither devout nor believer enough because why else would i suffer? have i tried reading the holy text? have i tried praying more? have i renewed my intentions?

no, mine is a different kind of anxiety, i can't count all the symptoms but this girl tells me that i have shortness of breath, that my ribcage feeling like it is constricting and poking into my lungs is no poetic heartache or longing – it's shortness of breath, and isn't that one son of a bitch

because mine is a different kind of anxiety, all my breaths are small gulps, and no matter how much i force them i can never fill my lungs enough to satisfy the need to breathe, but there are spurts of relaxed sighs

every
once
in
a
while

and sometimes i gasp, and gasp, and gasp and use all my energy to fill millions of capillaries with oxygen

to ensure that at least some clean air passes on to my blood –

but the blood has been replaced by the fire of a sickening feeling, and it strengthens with the oxygen i sent fanning the flames beneath my skin

because mine is a different kind of anxiety, one that is so dense and massive, it collapses in on itself and creates a black hole right where my heart is, between the lungs, and at the center of my circulatory system

one that gravitates everything surrounding it towards itself and swallows emotions whole,

one that is deafening, and shattering, and can't hold any meaning because shortness of breath is one son of a bitch, and what could i ever do?

00110010 00110010 00110001 00110000

Dear 12-year-old self,

You are the 500 pages of abridged classics in seven days. You are the $50 for each 100 pages in a race with your dad. You are the 176 books on your bookshelf, and the 12 more you buy with your own $50 at the book fair. You are the 95 points at a math exam, the 100 at an oral quiz. You are the five pieces of required artwork, and the three favorite pens. 

The number of people in your class (40) minus one (39). You are smarter than that many people. You are the four friends you found a group name for. You are the one friend that knew you since you were six. You are the only child, the first granddaughter. 

You are the 15th of every month. You are the one new pajama set and two pairs of shoes bought every 15th of every month. You are 34 plush toys, five photo albums, and one Yamaha recorder. 

You are the three plus two prescribed movements reiterated through every evening prayer. You are 801, the school ID you chose for yourself in first grade and surprised the principal with when you read it with ease. You are a composite of numbers. You are your pride in numbers. You are your enthusiasm for numbers.

And suddenly, it's seventh grade. You are 12.  You go to the bathroom during break time. It's a small school, there are maybe 15 girls in total. They are all in the bathroom, gathered around the only blonde, whispering conspiratorially.

"What's happening?" you ask.  
They look at you. The blonde one smiles. "I was talking to so and so last night and asked him to rank the girls in our school." 
"And?"
"Well, here, come look."
Number one is your English teacher, which makes you feel uneasy. She is engaged you think, she should not have been considered or put on this "ranking."
Number two is the blonde. You realize that you trust her word. (Now you are wondering why you did.)
Number three comes as a surprise. Your favorite number punches you in the gut and says you are it.
Number three.

And suddenly all the numbers that used to make up your being dissolve, and you're left bare with this three.

This three that taunts you. It's seventh grade. You do not yet know how the female body works. But you know that you were ranked number three by a boy possibly younger than you. And that makes everything worse.

You are not you. You have never been you. You are 2210 on the SAT, and fives on all your APs. You are 1,458 followers, and 26 poems. You are a composite of numbers. Nothing else.

Sanctuary

Do not make homes out of people, they warn me, so I make a sanctuary out of you. I don't return to you everyday, and you aren't my instinctual safe-house but you are welcoming even when I have sinned – especially when I have sinned.

There is grace and purity in you, and being around it relieves me. I thank the people who said not to make homes out of people, because I never want to feel confined within your walls or alone when I'm with you. I never want to be separated from you and suffer from being home-sick. I never want to have to leave you behind and then rebuild you brick by brick. 

I want you to be the steady point of my life, the stabilizer, the safety net. I want you to be wherever I go because I always need an escape and you are my refuge, my hideaway.

The feeling of divine love is multiplied in your presence, and I take off my shoes to walk on the sacred ground around your heart. You let me in to the shrine of your mind, and every now and then, I bring you statuettes of votive offerings. I don't want to walk away having left only my problems with you. 

You aren't a temple no, nor an object of worship – we both have our own Gods.  But when the religious heads can't contain me, and I'm looking for shelter, I come to you.

I come to you because sometimes I'm homeless and I need a place to stay. I need a listener for my stories and a holy person for my confessions.  I come to you because I feel safe – because if nothing else, I know one thing about the world, and that is, no matter how cruel people can be, they won't dare harm a sanctuary. 

***

Lots of  candy wrappers

~Belle