Fear

Awake, but was I ever asleep?
Am I always asleep?
My breathing is quick but shallow
I am not able to draw in deeply without pain.
Like something binds my very core.
There is something stuck in my throat,
I think it is a scream.
The beating of my heart is like torrential rainfall.
I hear it and feel it at the same time.
I don't know what is more intense,
The sound, or the tactile sensation in my chest.
My eyes are dry and feel too large for their sockets.
I blink rapidly for relief, but this is in vain.
I instantly return to the wide open stare of a frightened deer.
Trying to see through the pitch black night.
And the shaking,
The trembling,
As if there is an arctic chill.
And there isn't, I know because I am soaked with sweat.
So I try again to breathe, so odd.
I know I am breathing because I have not passed out.
Why can't I pass out?
I wish I could just fade to black.
But I won't, can't.
I must move, it is expected and required.
THIS does not happen to the likes of me.
Soon.
I have taken enough breaths that I begin to feel a small difference in my chest.
Miniscule.
As if the invisible binding  is loosening just a bit.
Minor stretching of tight leather bonds.
I can move , the incessant pounding in my chest slows to butterflies,
Softly fluttering around - just tickling my insides.
I need to get through this,
Whatever THIS is
What is in the center of my brain that causes THIS?
THIS violent reaction today?
Many days? 
But not every day.
No rational reason apparent.
I must know.
I'm sure I know.
But yet I don't want to know.  Or do I ?  I don' know.
So.
I am weak because I do not face the monster.
Or strong because I beat it back down regularly?
And am I a fool for the fight?
Where could I have gone if not for the constant fight?
Constant fighting with me.
Wonder if I will ever know.

Numbers. They are in my life.
47 is my age, my number of years on the planet. 48 is coming on 12/7, a date that will live in infamy
5 feet 9-3/4 inches is my height. On a good day.  222. My weight last time I checked - I think its a smaller number now - because 18 is now 16, the size I fit into, some days.  9  is my shoe size. But sometimes its 9-1/2 now - I don't know why.  Maybe feet get bigger.
1. The number of M R I scans I am supposed to have of my brain each year  Every year for the last 11 years 11 being the number of years since the brain surgery to remove the 1 tumor that was threatening my eyesight. its growing back.
1 is also the number of mammograms I am supposed to have each year because 2 is the number of lumps I have had removed from my breasts 1 from the left and 1 from the right.
2 is the number of medical tests I am behind on.  Oh well
0 is the number of children I have.  I was never ready and now 0 is the number of uterus I have so the number of children will not change
But 2 is the number of ovaries I still have.  Did you know that you don't always have to give up your ovaries when your uterus is uncooperative?  True story. So 1 time every month I feel extra emotional because I still have hormones. 1 is the number of eggs still produced each month by my ovaries. Alternating left side and right. Or vice versa. I wonder where they go. I wonder if they are cracked.

Hate

Sometimes I can't stand being me.
I want to scream until I shred into a million pieces.
I want to beat myself to a pulp.
Plunge my fist into my chest and pull my beating heart out
I cannot explain how unhappy I am with just words
Mere words
They are just black smudges on a page of white
There isn't a word for this pain
This endless empty chasm that is my soul.
My mind is devoid of anything intellectual to say to you.
It is so small.
But so full of everything that is wrong with me
I am the sum of all the fears fed to me all my life.
Fed a steady diet of you can't
Until I knew with certainty that I couldn't
And now I see that I should have
But I don't know how - and so I wallow
Stuck in the quicksand that has consumed my life
sucking down and down
Only a finger above the surface now