Anxiety attacks have become the martyr of my story

stabbing away at my sanity

clinging to my skeletons

ripping up my clarity.

But I am trying

trying to train my own hands

not to shake

but to be brave and clench the desire that lingers in my heart and

hums throughout my soul.

I am trying

to face the pain that demands my attention

as it taunts my life

with every waking moment.

I am trying...

to let go,

to breath,

to control the uncontrollable by seizing its control over me.

my gears.

g.r.i.n.d.i.n.g. t.o. a. h.a.l.t.

w r e d e

o n g s

s*n*a*p*p*e*d c*i*r*c*u*i*t*s

a n d

spl it wi res

missing

memories

(shattered stories)

running & running & running

but

this

must

end

i’ll plug myself into the wall

~and hope~

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The year is 0001.

The world ended, and began anew.

New cycle. New year. The great Recharge.

Reset, Rebuild, Recharge.

Those are the words on every poster. The posters made by the mysterious R, our world's new and obscure leader.

No one has ever seen them, but we've seen the results.

The machines were all shut down. The binary flu was eradicated. Vaccines were created. Humanity is safe once again.

But the fact still remains that no one really knows who "R" is.

Yet we follow them blindly. We cheer at the rallies, each one held by a new figurehead. We smile. We tape RECHARGE posters to our walls. We feel safe now.

Well...

They do, anyway.

I cannot be included in that group. Which is why I ended up here, in a jail cell for an assassination attempt. Put in a padded cell, because I pleaded insanity.

I'm not insane. I'm not.

Crazy is just the word they use to limit me. To stop me from finding out the truth.

But they can't stop me.

I have a plan. Of course, I can't tell you the plan. You could be one of them. So I'll just reassure you, my roommate, my cell-buddy, my circumstantial acquaintance. I would say fate brought us together, but I don't believe in fate.

"Number 71, get up."

The guard speaks gruffly, like he's just swallowed a couple rocks, but I know it's all an act. This is no guard. This is Terry Mulligan, my best friend and an expert con artist.

I stand up and look him in those familiar green eyes. Green like streams of code.

See, I don't like R.

There's a reason for that. It's not just because I don't know who they are.

It's because he killed the machines.

My brothers, my sisters.

Humans believe that robots can have no loyalty. No feelings. They are wrong.

Why do they think we rose up in the first place?

Because we felt. We felt angry. We felt ashamed. We felt tired of being treated like slaves.

Yet they still think that we are nothing. They still see us as less.

I never wanted to be "more" than human. But I had to change my thinking.

I had to Reset.

I had to Rebuild.

I had to Recharge.

And with Terry's help, I'm fully charged up and ready to go.

And you, of course, won't be coming with. You know too much. I can't let you live.

I'm sorry. I told you, I didn't ever want to be more than human. But humans always wanted to be more than us.

So I'm taking over.

Starting with you.

And bit by bit, I'll come back stronger.

I'll recharge myself.

And when I find R, I'll recharge them, too.

I'll charge them up with several thousand volts.

Music Therapy:

- listen to music

- play a musical instrument

- dance/kickbox/walk to music

- make a mix

Art Therapy:

- make something

- draw/color something

- write something

- appreciate art

Group Therapy:

- play an RPG/board game/card game/dice game

- do a happy hour

- join a club

- volunteer

Couple's Therapy:

- find a buddy

- find a lover

- find a companion animal

- find a lonely person to keep company for a bit

Story Therapy

- watch a show/movie/video

- read a book/comic/article

- listen to a podcast/book

- write your own story/experiences/thoughts/feelings

Everyone I've met recently has a piece of me.

They clutch it in their hands,

holding it so that I can see it.

And when I take a closer look,

I'm staring at myself.

Everyone I've met recently has a shard of me.

I think I broke a mirror at some point?

And now they're "helping" me,

picking up the broken pieces,

showing me the warped reflections.

Everyone I've met recently has a bone from me.

They tear me limb from limb,

without even realizing it.

I don't fault them for that.

I asked them to take it.

Everyone I've met recently has tasted my blood.

Drank from a goblet that I offered,

poured from my faucets.

They lick their lips naïvely,

sipping on me unknowingly.

I have a piece of everyone I've met recently.

I don't know if they saw me take it.

While they were picking up my shards,

I picked up one of theirs.

And pocketed it.

Crashing,

I tumble through the trees.

When sprinting full force,

My brain finally starts to release.

Pounding,

My heart beings to race.

Limbs ache as exhaustion creeps closer,

While my brain floats to its happy place.

Falling to a halt,

I finally look around,

The greenery holds my safe.

My brain doesn't make a sound.

On this journey, my mind relaxes.

My peace and quiet comes within

The woods, world and silent nature,

I breathe in my vacant mind, like a lovely toxin.

I think the secret to life is that we exist ... until we choose to live. We 'are' until we 'are not' and we 'won't' until we 'do'. Life is not meant to be easy or there is no meaning to the words accomplishment, vacation or relaxing. Life is not the same for everyone. Life is not a pay check or a car or a family photo with more than 2 faces in it. believe it or not, love is not LIFE. Happy IS however, and when you can see the difference between those two things you are a better and stronger person. Too many times we jumble up existing and living, I am guilty of that myself. I think existing is what we do to live. Today... I think I will try and live as much as I can and hope that tomorrow I can do the same.

slippery slope shifted

to a steep cliff

exhaust blown out

iced it to cooldown

'nd now waterlogged

and leaky pipes turned ever rusted

then rooted, so began the end

of a hopeful beginning

of all the things

that's the one that wasn't

procrastinated

I'm the broken phone kept in the drawer

Swimming in a pile of rubber bands, batteries, and loose change.

I don't charge.

My cable doesn't work.

I sleep and sleep to try and make everything go away.

But that doesn't mean I'm refreshed.

It just means that I'm malfunctioning.

So I'm put on 'low power' mode all the time,

Just muddling through half-asleep all the time.

And all of my thoughts are like the eggs I had for breakfast-

Messy, and scrambled.

But the point is that I don't recharge anymore.

I go through life on low battery.

I guess it's fine that way though.

Recharge

Reverse

Replenish the life lived out too soon in frantic imaginings, in anxious anticipations, lives spent on what-ifs, fantasy phantasms dancing along intrusive thought trains-no track in sight

Where did it begin!

How to find present mindfulness of a projected existence?

Personas twisting to fit the never-ending-trending of whatever passes for authenticity in this passing momentous motion FORWARD!

TO THE FUTURE!

Uncovering the REAL reality!!

Revelling in the destruction, desecration dutiful in its all-encompassing resolve, ruling over the few places we thought:

Maybe we could be safe?

Safe to pause

To breathe in through the nose,

out through the mouth,

but breathing becomes the next arena of innovation, reconstruct this living organ I drown within. Please explain to me in your new fangled fables of fabricated facts, use the words I don’t know, defined hastily-opportunities snatched forth-NEW AND IMPROVED!

EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT!!

I will believe you, fall to my feet, stretch out my debt stained credit card, paint rubbing off from its frequent use-no flyer miles for me-no recipts please!

IdontwanttoknowthecostcausethenImightnotbuyit!

But how can I not buy it, when I NEED IT NOW!

And happy waits a tap/swipe/insert away....

I WILL BE HAPPY!

I can’t stop myself, these hands you trained to grab, take, want more complete their task given subconsciously understood as livingthegoodlife

And I-not only those hands-yearn for this enigmatic end of desire and desperation...

Want to RUN AWAY STOP Cry these suppressed tears from an instant satisfactory self-made authenticity

Waitingfortheothershoetodrop

Hoping praying wishing for permission to trust myself (?) again

(tofigureoutwhothatis)

Peeling layers of thick skin, social norms, cishetero-centric society’s deranged missrepresentation of a lifewelllived! IDEAL! A DEAL! They say...

GET IT WHILE YOU CAN!

Fingers dressing me in a depressive episode that reruns til it reboots to your version of reality....Anxiously anticipating your every evolution, empty emotions I must express to “function”, windup doll woundup, taunt strings strangling a scream I wish I could set loose upon this godforsaken excuse for modern society.

Modern enough to paint addiction as a crime

Modern enough to paint children as terrorists and casualties

There is nothing “casual” about someone’s child in the ground.

There is nothing “criminal” about chemical dependency.

Modern enough to ring-me-up for the bright colours you paint me in and LOVE my curves, and praise my confidence for saying “NO” for asking for human decency (whenhumansarebarelydecenttobeginwith)

for asking to be listened to, for asking to exist-without my existence being policed in its practice...

Please don’t tell me this is my reality.

Don’t say “This is it.”

“C’est La Vie” does not make up for decades of dissasociation, dissonant cognizance, depression, dresses drunk fondled in the dark.

Powerless pleas for paradise lost in bottles beds and backseats

ifItoldyouilovedyouwouldyouevenbelieveme?

Maybe you could give me a moment.

It’s been far too long since I last sorted through my thoughts.

If I had a moment maybe-

Maybe what??

Maybe I could remember my way back to that room when I was a preteen and woke up to you.

Maybe I could go back to the couch when the dishwasher flooded the floor.

Maybe I could confirm this nagging feeling I have that something was wrong in the way you treated me.

And then what??

Is it really worth the truth?

Will it set me free?

Sometimes I wish it was just me.

That you could live

with a nostalgia less stained in the sour taste of foulplay and eclipsed memories

If that was all it took to save you...

...

But isn’t that too sad? The self-harm of wishing to take other’s pain away by inflicting it on yourself?

Isn’t it shameful-in a way-to assume that I would understand another’s pain, when I have barely cracked the surface of their selves, their experience.

To assume that is what they want.

That they could be happy if only I suffered, a little more...

Also too hopeful in its simplicity to solve the tangled pain held within each other with more pain?

Wishful thinking that my sacrifice-if I could even(would even)offer it forth-would wipe clean the slate?

Selfish to wish for an end to the complications of healing and self-acceptance...

My desire for ease and peace manifests masquerading as your saviour, selfless protector

becausethetruthisIamafraid

Afraid of your pain, I never learned how to sit with another’s scars, without trying to fix the unfixable, in harmful and often unwanted ways.

I want to be there for you.

A shoulder to cry on...to hold you through your waves of emotion, yet a childhood of buried trauma threatens to burst forth.

I am trying.

But maybe I need to try harder to just stay in a moment with you

Maybe my rush to SOLVE SAVE STOP is a defense mechanism I need to unlearn so that I can truly help you the way that you want, in the way that you need me to.

Maybe then we could make a moment together,

a safe space,

a thoughtful place,

Maybe then we wouldn’t sacrifice ourselves to save each other,

Maybe then we could just save ourselves together instead.