Tag: Deadness

Ag·o·ra·pho·bi·a: An Episode in Terror

I could not leave the house today.
I tried leaving the house at 11 to go to a meeting, but my body was fused to my bed like a mosquito on fly paper.
 I tried leaving the house at 1 to attend a book study at work. But I went to put on my shoes and could not feel my feet and thought I might fall                                                                                                                      and fall and fall
                                                                                                                and fall
                                                                                                        and
                                                                                                                               F

                                                                                                                 A                      

                                                                                                                                               L

                                                                                                                                                                   L
                                                                                                        .                           
   I tried leaving the house at 3:15 for therapy.
 I really tried leaving the house at 3:15 for therapy.
 Put on your shoes Erliss. One step at a time.   Stretch our your arm so you can feel your coat sleeve. One foot. Other foot. One arm. Other arm. We can do this, Erliss. We. Can. Do. This. 
  My heart beat so hard it felt like a machete thrusting through my sternum. 
          Keep going Erliss.

 I stood, and something gripped my throat – creepy slimy voice 

“You are going to die today, Erlisssssssssss.”

“i can’t breathe”
The door – get through the door Erliss.
But the door was angry –  It’s fiery bones pulsated as I reached towards it
i was scared.
Just turn the handle, Erliss.  You can do it.

I thought I could, I tried.
But the only portal to my salvation erupted with flames and smoke and epic hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, asteroids
   all the beasts of the air the beasts of the water the beasts of the sky
 Leviathan and Behemoth  and a thousand tongues screamed in unison

 “You can’t do anything right
  You are stain on humanity
 I hate you I hate you I hate you
You have no right to be here
Don’t touch me
Don’t touch me
DO NOT TOUCH ME!”

Their hands on my ankles my shoulders my thighs my waist my neck my eyes my throat 
          my reach twisted inward
           SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE

i can’t breathe
                 i can’t feel my feet.
                                             my body is fused to the floor
                            like a mosquito on fly paper.

Mocking whispers tell me stories of their conquest.
My chin to my knees, I melt into their vocalizations as the door towers above,
 a cross awaiting my crucifixion. 

I am not leaving
 the house
   today. 
?

Thank you for listening,
Much love to each of you,
Erliss

Comfortably Numb: Pink Floyd Meets Gregorian Chant

Three am. The wind is winding, screaming like a thousand ghosts in a Dies Irae chorale.  My cat scampers across the living room.  And I dread going back to sleep, afraid I might see my shadow again. I tire of these late nights. They hawk me – I feel an eye follow me through every corner of my psyche – which is more like a cornerless maze of spirals centrifuging my prefrontal cortex  down, down, down…  [Narrator note:  Erliss does not yet understand about spirals; they go both up and down, around and through. It’s never “either” – “or.” But we will let her be here for now.]

I am in despair.

Where is my self?  My core? Hello…is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at all?

 I used to listen to Pink Floyd all day as a teen, mostly after I got clean and sober. They never brought a smile to my face, except for Another Brick in The Wall. “How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?” They mostly reminded me that I was not alone in my crazy mind, after all, I needed nothing to make me comfortably numb –my body could do that all by itself.

I don’t want to use or drink, I just want to…disappear.  I am good at disappearing. I have been disappearing since I was a child, and no one would notice. It was like magic – and the “abracadabra” was some kind of uncomfortable tension, a weird smile, a certain stench, or a touch. And my face would  tingle, my arms and legs numb out, and

I

would

forget.

Such beautiful anesthesia we have in our bodies, this ability to self protect.  “It looks like the tiger has me in its teeth,” the brain says, “So chemicals, you know what to do.  Let’s play dead. It’s our last chance at survival, and if we get eaten, we will at least not feel it.”

I need a musical interlude… here you go…

https://youtu.be/KC86ZCtV6tI

 

Comfortably numb.  I think that’s why I am still here, why I never got eaten alive.

I feel dead.

Sometimes I play dead for hours. It has never brought a smile to my face.

I lay my head on the pillow, and sense a hand pushing the side of my head into the ground. I smell smoky stale carpet, and hear diabolical laughing. My cheek burns. My breath shallows. I no longer am a part of my body, it is someplace else. I am floating, floating, floating…

Then I wake up in a whirlwind.  Where is she? Where did she go? I want to go home. No, don’t, please don’t…tell me where I am…where did she go?  I do not know what I am talking about here, it’s some kind of madness in another place in my brain.

Now it is 3:30 am, and I am listening to the wind, wondering about deadness.

Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla.

Day of wrath and doom impending.
David’s word with Sibyl’s blending,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending.

Here is another interlude. I have known this melody since I was a little girl.

 

https://youtu.be/Dlr90NLDp-0

 

Gregorian Chant. Eerie and beautiful. Like the wind. Sounds just like the wind outside. Sounds like the wind inside. Inside me.

I should get myself back to bed.

Thank you for listening, my dear ones.

Much love,

Erliss, The Monkey Whisperer