literature

on panic attacks and parties

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

There are so many people and so little space in the Den.  The lights are flashing and everybody is moving but nobody really watching as the strobe light pulls frames from a slow-motion slideshow and the noise, it bleeds thick, like slicks of oil that slow your mind and weigh down your limbs.  You’re drowning, drowning in a sea of bodies that move with the coordination of a single-minded monster, drowning in the waves of closeness, waves of sickness, waves of nausea that wash over you with every gasping breath.  Fight it back, ride it out, find your way to the surface and open your eyes, you are not an animal of prey—just stay in your corner, back up to the wall, where you can see everything, you can see it all unfolding, unspooling, unrolling like a film you’ve seen before but never heard of, a sense of déjà vu that sets the room spinning on edge.  (Stay away from the ledge.)  Brush off the hands that drag you down to the depths, fight tooth and nail against the monsters who would have you give in, take a deep breath and trust your lungs not to fill with the blood from where you carved them a warning, a message to all who bore witness:  No me tocas.  Don’t touch me.  You are fire and brimstone and tonight you are untouchable, unquenchable, don’t let yourself sink.  Keep your chin up.  There is no one here who wants to hurt you, and you cling to this like a lifeline, remembering, reminding yourself:  you are safe, you are safe, you are safe.
anxietypanic
Written 18 July 2014, late at night.  Submitted to creative writing class later as flash fiction assignment.  Nonfiction, but will be filed under the classification under which it was graded.

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