I am breathing. I am breathing and this is highly unusual because I am also dreaming; and in dreams you are not normally so hyper aware. But there I am, standing under the soft white glow of the streetlamp, surveying my chest as it rises and falls while a thick, shapeless smoke expels from my mouth. I feel my lungs inflate but I also see them inflate as if a third eye has taken residency at the apex of my diaphragm. Molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange across my capillaries and the thin membrane of my alveoli. I am watching a million of my physiological functions take place all at once; DNA replicating, RNA translating, heart pumping, blood circulating, neurons firing. I am everywhere but nowhere in particular. I am very small, like an atom, but I am large enough to see the entire picture too. I am so large I extend outwards into the real world and I watch myself sleep.
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Today I woke up ready to be bad-tempered and full of self-commiseration. My alarm went off at 5:15 AM and I wanted to throw it across the room and shout obscenities at it until someone heard my call and turned back time so I could get, "just another hour even!". My stomach was so angry at me; the stress of this thing and that, and the stress of not eating, and the stress of wondering why I wasn't eating. It growled loudly at me but I had no appetite to appease it so I simply washed the sleep out of my eyes and dressed for work. I placed my feet in my shoes one at a time, muttering under my breath, furrowing my brow, pleading with my stomach: "if you would just settle down, maybe I could feed you!". I walked out of my house; it was cold and it was dark and, "why should the sun get to sleep in while I can't?" I cursed the empty streets and dark windows and I cursed the sun for being asleep. "Why should anyone get to sleep in while I can't?" When I arrived at work I was so driven with an all-encompassing rage that I threw myself into my tasks with a vigor unrivalled by that of my coworkers; past and present. I fed the dogs, swept, mopped, let them outside. I greeted each customer with a smile the likes of which you have never seen on someone harbouring such emotions. I made sure no mistakes were made. Applications were filed, emails were answered, dishes and clothes and dog paws were washed. I ran up and downstairs, scrubbing whatever there was to scrub while on the phone and petting three canines at once. I rescued an Australian Shepard from what could have been it's very demise and in doing so received the brunt of it's teeth on my cheek. I didn't even flinch. I bled. Surrounded by howling dogs and an icy breeze, I stood in the warehouse bleeding; wearing my wound and my blood and my heartbreak and all of my anger like a badge that I earned from a hard-fought battle. I was the only human soul in that building and I felt so alive and liberated; finally the walls came crumbling down and took all of my composure with them. I turned the music up and I howled. I howled with my face still bleeding and my heart still broken and my stomach still twisted. I howled until all the dogs in that room joined in chorus. I howled until the noise rolled from floor to ceiling, filled every inch, and after reaching every cavity it could reach, spilled onto the surrounding blocks. I howled until we achieved a frequency that trembled through every cell in my body; pulsed through my flesh like an artificial heartbeat. The hair of my arms stood on end. I howled until the vibrations pressed their way into the backs of my eyelids and the palms of my hands. I howled until all the stale air was gone from my lungs.
Sometimes I feel like my life is so ridiculous, there really isn't anything to do but laugh.
And so I did. I laughed away all the anger. I laughed away the throbbing heat in my face and the ringing in my ears. I laughed away the knots in my stomach. I laughed until I cried and what a sight that would have been; one lonely girl amidst a pack of domesticated beasts, hysterically sobbing and laughing simultaneously with her face buried in their fur.
Maybe I am broken. Maybe the frenzies and the badges and the howling and the inappropriate laughter are activities reserved for broken girls. But there is something so hilarious, and so unlimited, about being me. Broken or not, I get by just fine on my own.
A woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd; but a woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one's ever been before.
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