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This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author. |
| 011926. This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author. Sleep and Fear I didn’t sleep well last night. Nothing happened. That’s the strange part. No noise. No dreams that I remember. Just the familiar jolt of waking, as if my body had decided it was no longer safe to rest. When I finally gave up and got out of bed, everything felt tight. Not sore exactly. Guarded. Like muscles that had been holding a position all night without permission. My shoulders burned. My jaw ached. I hadn’t noticed I was clenching my teeth until the pain reminded me. I made coffee and stood at the counter, waiting for it to brew. The sound felt intrusive. Not loud, just unavoidable. My skin prickled, as if the noise itself was touching me. Part of me needed to hear it finish. Another part needed it to stop. I had to fight the urge to unplug it before it was done. That felt like another small theft. Not being able to let ordinary sounds exist without monitoring them. Being alert even when nothing is wrong. I know it isn’t a failure, but my body reacts as if it is. I keep realizing how little control I have over these reactions. My body decides before my mind catches up. I don’t choose to tense. I don’t choose to listen. I don’t choose the way my breath shortens or how my skin tightens when something shifts in the room. Later, when I left the house, I checked the locks again. My hands remembered the motion. Turn. Pull. Pause. I told myself it was practical. Responsible. But the truth is my body wouldn’t let me leave without doing it. In the hallway mirror, I caught my reflection. Calm. Neutral. Familiar. The kind of face people don’t worry about. It startled me how little of what I feel shows on the outside. How practiced I’ve become at carrying fear quietly. I don’t know when my body learned this. I don’t remember deciding to live this way. I only know that it does, and that it takes constant effort to keep it from showing. Nothing happened today. No danger. No reason for alarm. And still, my body never fully stood down. I wish people understood that survival doesn’t always feel like fear. Sometimes it feels like constant readiness. Like muscles that never soften. Like breath that never quite reaches the bottom of the lungs. I don’t try to think too far ahead anymore. Tomorrow is too much. For me, survival is smaller than that. Another hour. Another minute. Another moment where my body doesn’t betray me completely. So how do I decide what survival is? I live in constant fear. That is my reality. And my body knows it, even when my mind tries to argue otherwise. That leads to another truth. I don’t like to be touched. My body reacts before I can explain. Before I can soften. Before I can reassure. “Don’t touch me.” |
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