under water

Ever feel like you're in a fishbowl, being stared at by everyone around you? Like you can't go anywhere or do anything, can't run or jump or scream, just float... just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, even if it is in circles within a small glass tank filled with your own piss? Ever feel like when you try to push back against your binds and forced limits, instead of getting shattered glass and exasperated relief, all you get is your reflection delivering a head-butt?

My answer: all the time.

Ever feel like you're in a snow globe? In some mini utopia that, at random, shudders uncontrollably, and when life starts to settle back into perfection, an unknown god who might reasonably be played by child with ADHD clutches your world into his sticky fingers and shakes you up again?

My answer: all the time.

Do you ever, ever feel like you've got a song to sing and you're trying to let it out long and loud for all the world to hear if they're willing? Have you ever suddenly felt like the sweet air you're releasing is the pressure from the walls closing in and crushing you, like you're the center piece of an accordion and the notes are playing nicely until two hands are squeezing you so tight you can no longer breathe? Like you're an amazing instrument meant to play a part in an incredible orchestra, and just when you think you're starting your piece, you're exhausted.

: all the time.

It wasn't long ago that I felt I had a purpose, which was to inspire others to find their confidence, their dreams, their best abilities. I had energy and could dance and sing and breath life into others who felt hopeless and out of reach. My life in and of itself was a song. Of course it had it's repetitive choruses and mistakes, it's high notes and unexpected low notes, but it was beautiful and intentional and directed by something outside of myself.

Now I'm out of wind and, still at the hand of someone or something else, I am crushed. And I fear that if this thing lets me go I will collapse into an even weaker nothingness.

I am only 24 and I feel like my song is over all thanks to the zealoused way I've lived, the reckless way I've fought for myself and for others. I was stretching and dancing and floating on instinct and good intention, and now I'm frozen stiff. What an astonishing and tragic way to go.

Every time I feel like things are getting better and the clutch is slowly loosening to give me back my passion and song, someone switches the anology and shakes me up causing yet another example of worst case scenarios. My world is constantly being turned upside down. The snow and random bits and tears cascade from top to bottom, and cover my could-be utopia, so I'm striving in the most fragile of environments.

AND I'm being watched by outsiders. I'm being judged and critiqued and expected to accomplish something profound, I think. My boss, my parents, my brothers, my employees, my youth, my friends, my roommate, strangers, plants, rocks, my own little fish... every move is being witnessed. Every stride is evaluated, calculated, and appraised at lowest value.

I AM ONLY 24!

I AM JUST A LONELY FISH who's mantra is "just keep swimming..."

But I have no direction. I have no dream of being able to leave. I can't escape the magnifying glass without confronting my own internal deamons anyway.

I replenish only when you feed me. I stir only when you frighen me. I'm bathing in my own shit, you know, and I fear, and I cry constantly, which is something you ironically do not see at all.

I really am only 24. Survey says I'm not even a fully matured person. Yet the life has been squeezed out of me from all the topsy-turvy life altering up but mostly downing I've endured while isolated and under pressure.

I need to breathe.

I need this shit to settle.

I really need an escape plan.