Little ol’ stimtastic me

I want to search for myself in the grain,

stills can only tell so much

and I need more.

So back I roll past white noise

to the start of my fingers

tapping out the sheet music on invisible keys

while my eyes put up their barrier against the hum

and I go off into space.

There it is. The movement

I’m playing right now, recorded in the background

twenty-one years ago.

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Shock Waves

My body charges, electric triggers,

kinetic activity without consciousness.

A way to handle it all, a dance

both natural and strange. Magic to me,

psychotic to others, turning, winding, spinning.

 

Should I stop? Can I stop?

 

The energy might come out

as fire or lightning

if I force myself to slow.

Out of Us

The cage rattles as the shrieks fill it up,

over-spilling the ribs to the point of cracking.

Look up,

look UP.

Don’t sink to the riverbed,

resurface and gasp for air.

Ignore the temptation

to sprint past go

until you’ve no go left.

Grip the safety line being thrown to you,

you know it’ll never be forced away.

You know you can’t push it away.

Anxiety

The paces quicken; Lori chatter

down the phone as time expands and collapses

in a moment of sirens and panic and onlookers who don’t know how to react.

Of course, it’s all in your head

as you raise your hands in surrender

to that great barrier:

the front door, the bus, the road, the airport.

Rubbing shoulders, no air, no space,

condensed further than canned milk

and becoming even more jelly-like,

melting against the heat and fear

until you

 

scream.

 

And then they look at you.

Crazy.

And walk away.

 

Me; you

I want you to see me

I want you to see me in all of my forms

 

when I’m ecstatic

and can’t stop grinning no matter how serious everyone else is

 

when I’m in a rage

and want to break things to vent my fuming energy

but usually end up silently cursing because I’m at work

 

when I’m overwhelmed

by everything and shut down inside

losing interest in just about everything until my energy returns

 

when I’m so excited

by something that you hear every detail six

times over and begin to get a little excited yourself,

even though you have no personal interest in what it is

 

I want you to see me

when I understand

 

I want you to see me

when I don’t

 

I want you to see me

without the act

without the walls

without the white lies that say I’m okay

even as I’m falling away inside.

 

I want you to see

me

Wave barrier

The hubbub in my ears rumbles through my bones and shakes the foundation I balance on. The conversations of a hundred different people, hiss, snicker, guffaw. Chatter chatter chatter, clinking glasses, scraping cutlery, a band incessantly droning on, light brightening, yellowing, glaring. It’s a wave of sensory input building, building, waiting to crash down and knock me back.

I can beat this, I can hold my ground.

Building my own rhythm, a gentle tap of focus. Constant, repetitive motion. A wall against the wave. My feet start to steady.

I might still get pushed back, but I’ll stay standing this time.

Discombobulate

The fog looms behind my eyes threatening

to seep out if I widen them enough.

Yet my eyes aren’t wide at all, they’re half

closed, eyelids sinking low despite the overwhelming

rushes of air, clinking of keys, feet shuffling

a little too close and perfume forcing its way up my nostrils.

I can feel my body one moment, and in the next

it’s lost, disconnected and I’m a floating head.

A floating head with a parroting voice, a mimic,

a copycat of everything, even emotions.

Not that I don’t feel my own. Mine just won’t display.