Tumblr is so inspirational. I get on and I scroll through the simplest things that mean so much and it makes me want to be a part of it all. I want to make art or take pictures or do something great and then write about it. But then here I am, sitting in the break room at work. Seeing beautiful things through the little screen on my phone. I turn my head and see the tinted windows to my right, looking down on the sales floor where I will be walking in 30 minutes. I’ll walk them for 8 hours of this day, counting the minutes and seconds that I have to be here, to make the money that pays a bill or a loaf of bread. I’ll spend an hour back up in this break room later on, to chew mindlessly the food my boyfriend and I cooked the night before. He’ll look at me and smile. And yet the knot in my stomach will grow with every ticking of the clock. Back on the floor. Walk a customer to their item. Be nice be nice. Even when they are never nice back. We will go home at the end of the day. We will forget to lock the car or the front door before we turn in for the night, sinking restlessly into the bed covers. I’ll have another dream about my brother committing murder over and over again. I will wake up the next day, feel the stress of the previous day still weighing on my stiff shoulders. But it’s never a particularly hard day, not a difficult day. Just a normal, do-your-part, kind of day. It isn’t all that bad. I’ll continue this life, because it’s comfortable. I’ll have kids in the next couple of years and then I’ll have a purpose. Right now I’m just paying rent.

I don’t recall ever feeling anything quite like this. I know people talk about getting that feeling, like something bad is gonna happen, but this thing that I feel is like… sensing the approaching doom of something. But it’s like it’s happening in multiple spots, to different people, gradually. We’re all part of it, playing it, and I can feel things gradually deteriorating in all directions, very slowly. But it’s started speeding up now. It’s building. It’s building and soon existence is going to peak and then I won’t know what anything is anymore. No one will. And it’s like watching a movie that you can’t pause or turn off. Everyone is continuing to draw closer to this inevitable disaster and they can’t see it or sense it. Tama can, though- my cat. Sometimes I can feel his anxiety, you know? Ever since we moved, I know he can feel that things aren’t right. There are disturbances in the world and the atmosphere; in the time and this dimension. And things are already bad, bad things happening, but they’re almost like shadows of what’s really to come. Like it’s saying, “No, I’m only getting started. We’re not finished yet,” and then comes the feeling of hopelessness, that anything and everything is out of my control. It will never get better. Bad things have moved in and they’re not leaving and soon they will start turning every good thing and every joyous feeling into little mushrooms of doubt and self-destruction that grow in the pits of our stomachs, eventually making their way into our minds… It’s just a real bad feeling, one that I fear I am cruelly being given as a glimpse into something none of us will ever know. If this is the ethereal, I don’t want any part of it.

cheap perfume and painted faces 

I went to work on my day off today and bought a box of Valentine’s chocolates. I sat in the breakroom to eat them and quietly watch my fellow co-workers drift in and out of their own heavy minds… but my mom called for me to pick her up from her doctor’s appointment earlier than expected. So I left. And as I left, I lay a note on the table for anyone to eat the chocolates, because I could not. I told a few people that I passed about what was on the table. They were genuinely happy and thanked me for leaving it there for others to have. You didn’t have to do that, Betsy. I smiled. Of course I did. I wandered to the south side of the store. I caught sight of Bill just as he was turning to head to the tire desk. He saw me. He froze. I walked with him the rest of the way. I left the store. After picking my mom up, and having brunch at Perkin’s, we went back to my work. She needed to buy something. She wandered and I went upstairs with Bill. He was on lunch. I sat in silence, listening to how his morning had been. I watched his hands, as he pealed apart a lean pocket. A few minutes are gone. A call from my phone. She’s done shopping and is ready to go. I stand. I hesitate. The over-whelming feeling is creeping up again. No, don’t walk me downstairs, that’s stupid. His hand runs over the top of his head and back down again. He looks at me, waiting. I turn and go back downstairs, glancing over my shoulder just for a moment. I can’t breathe. I go to the checkout lane with my mom. My phone vibrates. Text Message. My throat is dry as I read it. My head is so light I think it might float to the ceiling. I bury away the fast beating of my heart and continue with my day. I’ll go to my dad’s tonight. He’s picking me up after the gym. My phone will not be used tonight. I will not have a text, no calls, just silence. I will go to sleep. I will probably dream of nothing that makes sense and feel bad about it and then tomorrow the knots in my stomach will resurface.

I’m up at all hours of the night. 

Just thinking about the choices I’ve made and which ones were wrong, which ones were right, and which ones had no other outcome. I am certain about some, others I am not. I’m still confused about most of it. I’m also sorry for the path my mind keeps taking. There is a sick feeling in my stomach, like a roller-coaster at its peak, and my face burns at a glimpse. It was cold, but my feet stayed glued, and now I’m left with the sick feeling in my stomach…