: aka
>This is a work of autofiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are possibly fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is likely coincidental. Or not<
Soon after the party I stopped sleeping almost entirely. It did not happen on purpose. I had always been excellent at the act of laying down, closing my eyes, falling deep, waking up refreshed, 8 hours on the dot. But now, something had shifted. I would lie down, close my eyes, and remain like that for hours and hours, my head racing through any and all thoughts. I would eventually mysteriously fall asleep, which I knew was true only because I would eventually wake up. I did not feel refreshed, but I did not feel as tired as I thought one ought to feel after not having slept for a full night. The first times that this happened, I thought to myself that I must have slept at least a few hours, that while it was true that it was not easy to fall asleep, I could have played it up in my head. But then, night after night, in those hours lying down, I knew that I was not at rest. I know the state I entered was not sleep because I could think. I know it was not fully awake either because, where I live, I am surrounded by church bells. Every 15 minutes, they play. One ring: 15 past. Two rings: 30 past. Three rings: 45 past. At first, I found it odd, but it kept me company in the beginning phase of my nightly unrest. At one point, no more bell rings, just my thoughts keeping time. A weird state, in-between. Stuck. Not dreaming either.
At first, concerned that too much unrest would make it harder for me to engage fully in my desperation, I tried to fight this trance state I was entering. I went back to my old reliable mediation practices. I went easy, I just counted my breaths. If I could count my breaths, I could not think other thoughts.
1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, I think maybe I should start being more open to people, I should smile at them on the streets, try to make conversations with strangers, I always wanted to do it, but something has always stopped me and I am not sure why, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, but what I would even tell people if I did, I don't think I have anything to say, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, two church bell rings, I'm not sure what I am even ever afraid of, not just about talking to strangers, why can't I just sit down to write or to read or go out for a walk, why can't I do what I like to do, how is it easier to do something I feel gross doing, how is it easier to give into the constant buzz buzz 01010 of my phone, am I afraid of succeeding? Am I afraid of the opposite? 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale,
my feelings are so deep and ugly and boring
i'm bored bored but i want to conquer the world
i think i can do it but i sit catatonic
i think i am but i don't do
is there anyone that just does? without effort?
5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale,
i think i should pull my tooth out, bare hands, blood gushing out
my tongue white and dry and sick
i am tired by back hurts, nothing can fix it, my mattress crooked and my pillow smells like cat piss
my belly enormous heavy soft and heavy and loved and heavy and comforting and heavy
7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, three church bell rings, when you're a kid you think life is just the way it is and is just going to remain the way it is forever. You experience every day and every season and every year as if it's the constant and unchangeable state of things. When the small things disappear, transform, lose their pattern, you do not even notice until they have turned into something else entirely. To an extent, you do see and understand how the world is changing. But you learn that there is nothing you can do to stop this. The constant flux of water is what makes a stream a stream. Stasis in itself is a process of change for which, out of all the possible rearrangements of reality, the object rearranges itself in the same manner, reproducing its last state is in itself a form of invisible change. Change is the only constant.
3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, when I was a kid I saw my family and our family ways and our family schedules and our family holidays as stable pillars of my life. I did not even question the possibility of change. Even though change did occur. The first big one was the sale of the beach house in Via Verdi. We drove past it the other day. I remember the smell of moldy rooms kept closed too many days a year. I remember the cool shade covering most of the garden most of the day. I remember the mosquitoes eating us alive. I remember being scolded by my aunt for my table manners. I remember the bathtub and the colorful plasters she gave us to put on our little cuts. I remember the green armchairs, and I remember a World Cup stuck against the screen. I remember my sister's birthday gift, a bike. I remember going to the beach. I remember the black cat my dad and uncles had painted when they were kids, upstairs at the other apartment. I don't remember the sale, the goodbye, the first summer without it. I remember its towering presence, but I do not remember how it feels to have seen it gone and replaced by a different one, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, it seems so stupid all these thoughts, so superficial, so 23 year old of me, the world I live in is big and messy and violent and full of heavy things, the world I build inside of me is even worse, yet it all could be so light, everything could easily dissipate into vapor, but these things stay, they stick, they stain, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 1 inhale-2 exhale, 3 inhale-4 exhale, 5 inhale-6 exhale, 7 inhale-8 exhale, 9 inhale-10 exhale, phone rings loud, two bell ring, slightly delayed, it's 8:30, I'm up. I pull the covers: blood, still wet.