Inner City Demolition

I'm trying to write this out. Just as I feel it, in this moment, this now.

I want to vomit. My head is spinning, and its polar edges are forward, back, lean way back, side to side, spin spin spin. And with the rotation of my perspective, I can't focus, not even the words on this screen; I'm focusing my eyes on the phone, the stain on this desk, the open/closed sign suction-cupped on the window, our bonsai tree sighing on the ground. I'm noticing that I can't even look at the customers in the eyes as I speak to them; my eyes are erratically looking which way - and there's no way in hell that any one person or thing are affecting me. My skin is prickled, the hairs are standing on end and I have goosebumps, though it's not cold that I feel, just shivers that periodically run up and down my back. My blood rushes, my fingertips quiver on the keyboard. My heart is thumping out of my chest and up to my throat, and I cannot breathe. I feel like I'm panicking in the sanctuary of my office, and it's taking all of my strength to sit upright.

When I walked in, I greeted the staff before racing to the washroom. Chi Ngan looked at me, and concerned, told me that my face was pale. I peered at my face in the mirror - I was drained of all color, my eyes were dilated; I looked stricken, although I wasn't aware that I was until that moment. I hate looking at the mirror when I'm emotional; I always look more devastated than I thought I felt, and that sends me down the path of the expression I see.

I'm in a place of heavy anxiety. I'm accumulating the strength to continue to sit here; I'm losing the strength to continue this much further. Being in a public space makes me want to scream and run, but I have responsibilities, I do, I do. The drive from Berkeley to San Jose this morning was a long trial. There were moments when I thought it was so easy to just veer my wheel a hard left, and all things would swiftly, forcefully end. My body trembled violently with the wheel, and I willed myself to stay in between the lines of the lane.

The thought of the drive back into the city tonight for the Meisner class is causing me stress. I don't know how I would be able to deem myself able to make that journey; I cannot ask another individual. I cannot fall apart here. Again, I'm feeling disgusting nausea thinking of this drive.

Oh, God, help me. I need the release from writing this. I am anxious about going home, because my parents are angry at me. I am anxious about staying here, because I'm afraid of being sick, or even worse, lashing out in plain sight. My bowels feel like they're retracting. That my insides suddenly carry lead, and my upper body is ripping away to float - I'm being split apart - this anxiety! I have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and nowhere to be safe.

A migraine quakes behind my eyes. Sometimes I black out, and though the darkness lasts for only a split second, the blindness stirs me, evoking this bubbling panic. It is hell to be here.