Under Pressure

Every year at this time there is a change that begins with the sky and falls pressurized into my body, altering the cells. My brain shifts. I can hear the noticeable movement of fault lines. This year the fault lines seize. They are under pressure.

As September begins I am underground. I have no zoloft. I am in physical pain which lights anxiety as perfectly as match to flint. I am unsure if I will be able to keep my job. Tomorrow I go back to work after last week's rib refract and chiropractic adjustment, to see if this small tongue clicking sound like my body chastising itself will end up with a truncated rib, and disability. Disability which means half reduction income. Half reducted income during the exact same month our roomate has moved out. During the same week when Dakota's testing- this Tuesday- occurs, and we have saved money in a white crumpled envelope in our desk drawer to pay for this, money which now leaves a hole in our rent check. I have $24 dollars left after groceries, which I bought with extreme care. We are so fucked.

I go to work on my novel and look at the words and cry. I have nothing to say for my characters. I have no plot line for them to dance to. I have only the blinking stare of the computer and three years worth of work which has never brought me a penny and maybe never will. Still I have to write. I have to write. Not being able to write is like not being able to cum. I sit in the chair and stare at the blinking computer and press my fingers down harder as if the pressure will emit some signal my brain WRITE WRITE WRITE because not writing is hurting. Not writing is leaning forward for an hour and trying to write and crying in frustration because nothing happens. Nothing is said or done or thought. I love my novel and I cannot keep it alive. It sits there fading on life support while I breathe futile and heavy into it's mouth. No air comes. Nothing comes. I am too afraid to write because if I write and I cannot sell my words then the dream I hold onto to get me through all these years of poorpoorpoor will die and I do not allow myself to go there. I cannot write because I am depressed. Anxious. Fucked.

Lola and I played with her little fairy toys earlier. I kept my eyes on her shining face to restrain the overwhelming boredom. Yes, now she is giving you the magic honey potion and you can fly! Oh Lola. I hope I fake it just right.

I watch reality tv late at night and want to hit myself in the head with a hard object. The pointlessness of everything is magnified a million times in every show. Watching the bodies flail and fuck and humiliate every gift and opportunity given reaffirms depression. I change the channel. So and so is dead. A little girl is molested, and dead. I change the channel. Spend a hundred dollars or be fat forever. I change the channel. I turn off the tv. I try to read and the words mean. nothing. This is the anvil of fuckedness. It has dull eyes and a stupid tongue without taste buds and bursts into tears when it takes a shit and there is no toilet paper on the roll. The ugly tiny me rolls in self pity. My legs and ankles are swollen and hideous, my face is exhausted, I look old and not special and I don't care how many times Mr. Curry tells me I am beautiful I don't believe him at all. Hopefully I'll believe him next week, on Tuesday maybe. Let's shoot for that.

I cannot taste food. The chocolate wafer bars this afternoon lay on my tongue like cardboard. I need to eat and have no appetite, feel sick when I don't eat feel sick when I do. I lay in bed at night and hold my hands in a prayer vigil. The thought runs What are we going to do? As if I have the answer. As if asking will produce solution. And the thought runs What are we going to do? And I think of mothers whose children have cancer, who live in starvation, who cannot protect their children from elemental harm and still sweat pools between my breasts and my chest is tight in fear and the though screams What are we going to do? If we can't pay our rent. If we lose this house and have no money for a downpayment for a new rental.

We planned and it all fell through. We had a roomate and she left early. We had savings and they have been used. We had my job until November and I injured my rib and missed half my days of work. Now we have half of a paycheck coming on the seventh with half the money needed to make rent.

This is not a love story.