Then again, at least it’s only a Tuesday, so far the worst days of my life happen to fall on Thursdays.
When there’s an unassuming doubt inside that consumes even a good day, everything that seemed stable muddles itself into an unwindable loop. Constrictive self-awareness exhausts the effort over the outcome, and this is how it tends to start.
Eyes that awaken in a blink, eyelids fluttering open as they try to relive the blur. Clutter leaves no room for mistakes or thoughts abandoned in gaps. Clothes lie, not in replies but on the floor to await their folded reprise; instead, they are stacked in piles and shoved in teeny nooks. Hidden away are notebooks, crammed between the headrest after futile attempts to jot down snippets of long-lost dreams.
A paper crane gifted to you in middle-school, among other mementos, is spread atop a cardboard box stacked from the floor up, all four flaps slouch with lousy intention to be a makeshift nightstand. The frame of the doorway, and mirror greet your sedentary stirring (that's right, you have no door, privacy no more).
Dread floods as composure emerges. A hassle you tend to avoid out of inexcusable convenience. You step backwards from the mirror as if it were a harsher critic than that group of Valley Girls. It humbly believes to merely exemplify your pores and darken the shadow underneath your eyes.
Nobody can truly be this dulled down, can they? Even the psyche isn’t that clever to reverse-psychologize itself out of that one. Has it ever made you paranoid enough to change your outfit multiple times before settling for the one that is least flustering — scratch that, say what you really mean — flattering?
The radiator rattles unexpectedly most times, reminding you how nerves will always be whispering to you. Onwards to a venture across worries, afraid to confess this anxiety while navigating your way through unhinged behavior. Yet you appear just as displaced by submerging yourself in your head over and over.
Sparingly, your mind must grasp onto any singular thought, even if it’s the worst of all, you still latch on to it hoping to understand the limits of your emotional capacity. Unknowns send you into a seamless spiral, compelled to a passive shred of detriment.
Aside from all of it, the silver lining is that grounding reminds you that it can only go up from here. The remainder has to be a good day. A relief ensues at last: the thumping of your head has slowed, panicked thoughts have lost their place, and you'd rather beg for a friendly embrace than another trip to the guidance counselor’s office. (They’re already turning into weekly visits, how much more could she really take?)
Right on cue, you plop those generic earbuds in and attempt to start over the morning. As if those girls that eat breakfast every day had to even contemplate having a good day because it seems that they don’t at all, them doing so is their means of “trying.”
Then again, at least it’s only a Tuesday, so far the worst days of my life happen to fall on Thursdays.
Shrieking from the school bus can be heard outside at the corner of the sidewalk, right on cue. The turn is mine to put up my blinders and let the good punches roll into my bloodstream through reverse osmosis.
Forget for a second about hormones, SATs, and being yelled at last night over not knowing what to eat for supper. You might not make the best of it passively going through the motions, but what matters is getting through today in hope of being closer to tomorrow’s dreams.
Nicole Verbitsky is a 20 year-old writer from Northeast PA. A writer of bittersweet poems and the seldom short story, she also serves as a poetry editor for The Lunar Journal. At this time, her work appears in Neverland Lit and upcoming in voidspace zine. Her hobbies include overanalyzing media and reading with music in the background.
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