Exhaustion.

I’m on a sinking raft in the middle of an angry sea.  There is no land in sight and my safety is falling quickly beneath the fury.  I cannot swim, I’m destined to drown.  The freezing water stings as it’s covering my legs, inching it’s way up my thighs the way so many hands have in my past. Claiming my body with greedy intentions as if gentle touches would soften the destruction that is inevitable.  I learned long ago not to fight, to be as still as possible.  Pretend to be as dead on the outside as I am on the inside.  Eventually he would have his fill and it would be over. This is no different than the last time – or the times before that. The rising water surrounds my chest and captures my breath.  With a trembling voice I remind myself that these lungs have been faithful and they wouldn’t give up on me now, no matter how much I begged them to. Up my body it crawls, reminding me of them. Deaths grips around my throat and I taste the salty memories of my past.  So many men.  So many times. My innocence was traded, my childhood stolen. For some of them it was only one moment but I’ve lived it every day. The ocean hugs me as I look around, amazed at how it feels to be free at last.  I’m floating, almost flying, at its mercy but I feel safe in its embrace.  My lungs haven’t given up, they’re aching and burning.  I’m begging them to let me go.  Let me have this peace I’ve been searching for all my life. Please, let me die. My eyes close and I smile one last time. This is it, finally.

My eyes jerk open and I’m gasping for breath.  I am soaked and for a second I wonder who pulled me from the water. I hear a voice telling me that it’s okay, it was only a dream.  I was just having a bad dream.  I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that it was the best dream I can remember ever having but she wouldn’t understand.  She wraps me in her arms and pulls me close.  This is as close to drowning as I’ll ever get. She feels like the ocean against my back.  Safe and accepting and for a moment I forget how painful existing is.  I feel loved for the first time in my life.

I wish I had that moment again right now instead of sitting at this desk alone in my office.  My life is crumbling around me and it’s all my fault. I want her to chase me around the bed in her sleep only to catch me and hold me tight. I want my ocean.  I can look back at the decisions I’ve made in the last month and see exactly how I ended up in the spot I’m in now. I’ve been stressing over the questions I have to answer in my packet to see my new therapist Tuesday.  I don’t want to answer them. I also don’t want to renew a lease on an apartment I hate, but I have to do that Monday.  And tonight my car got repossessed because I defaulted on a loan.  Not because I couldn’t pay the payment but because I didn’t want to go into their office and have to deal with a person.

I don’t fucking feel good. 

I don’t want to deal with anything after I get off work in the morning.  I want to go home and climb into bed with my pups and the cats and sleep away this feeling. The last two days have been so amazing and now I feel like falling off the earth.  I wish there was a mute button for my thoughts, a way to shut them off just for a while.

I don’t want to fucking exist.