Try to Breathe In

Sometimes I get this feeling. My heart aches inside, causing my entire chest to feel sore. My breathing becomes strained and staggered as if a hook has been drilled into my spine, and a rope is yanking me backward. Or possibly like I’ve been forced into a hug, my arms crushed to my sides, my lungs shrinking with every limited breath. I look around me to see who’s causing this and I see that I’m alone. This tension and strain is just me.
My brain lost connection a long time ago. I think this feeling comes to me because of that. It’s hard to identify exactly what I’m feeling because I don’t really feel much. So I panic. It’s so intense and identifiable, it lets me know that I know how to feel. Even if it makes me curl up and hide my face, I know it’s something.
Every other moment it’s something else. Always that one monotone note,with an indiscernible key. It’s just like when you press your hands into your eyes and go blind for a couple of seconds, or when you push yourself up and see bent colors instead. When you pop your back and you feel like there should be one more pop but there isn’t. When a person brushes their hand against you gently and you get shivers up your spine. Like a song on the radio that is sped up a bit, just that so you can tell, but also that you can’t. Or when your TV cuts out, and instead of a continuous stream of media consciousness, you get loud, loud, white noise.
Just white noise.
It’s like that.
It’s an inescapable unsatisfied feeling within me that I can only forget about when I laugh or sleep. I can only tell so many jokes before my laugh becomes tired and leaves. I can only sleep for so long before I start to feel the ache again. Sometimes I think it would be nice to end it quickly.
I don’t think about suicide often, or romanticize it in any way. But sometimes my mind wanders, and it’s hard not to imagine. Not to think about the relief from just not being there. A straight shot to the head. Gone.
It’s not important though.
It’s just a feeling I get.