The Squeeze
Stress
Anxiety
Being poor
Really poor
The squeeze
The fear
The panic
The restless nights
With angry legs
Tossing
Turning
Worrying
Playing out everything in your mind
Everything that has happened,
Everything that could’ve happened
And what might happen.
Its funny how your imagination works when you don't want it to
But
The second you try to write
To produce
To create,
Its gone.
That imagination that keeps you up
Focusing on the worst of you
Shining a light on it
Critiquing
Planning
Scheming
To be better
To make moves
‘Tomorrow,
When i get up,
I’ll do this and that,
I’ll be different,
I’ll save my money,
I’ll be better at life
I’ll workout hard
And
I’ll eat healthy,
If i could only get some fucking sleep.’
But
You don’t sleep.
Your heartbeat quickens
The thoughts don’t stop
The mind is sprinting
While the body
The body flips pillows
Lays flat
Turns onto one side
Then
Onto the other side
Then
face down
Head buried in a pillow
Nothing is comfortable
The legs
The damn legs man
They’re angry
Yelling at you
Attacking you
Like a parasite.
The legs rub together
As if attempting to ignite a spark
And catch your sheets on fire.
You turn again,
You stick a pillow between your knees
You try to focus on your breath
‘10 deep breaths,
C’mon
Just focus on your breath.
Nothing else.
Inhale
And
exhale,
1
Inhale
And
Exhale
2
In hale and ….
I still need to pay my taxes from 2019!
They’ll garnish my paychecks soon!
It's only two hundred!?
I can do two hundred!
Why haven’t I fucking paid it yet?!
What the hell is wrong with me?
Why do I ignore shit like this
And hope it’ll just go away?
Oh shit!
10 breaths!
Where was I?!
Oh yeah
At three
Okay
Inhale
And exhale
Four
Inhale
And exhale….
I need to find the title for my car!’
Your mind takes off again
Leaving you
You feel helpless
You cannot control your own mind
It’s as if there is a noose around your neck
And you aren't being dropped suddenly
The rope is just slowly tightening
The thoughts
The stress
The anxiety
The squeeze
You feel it all
All at once.
You check the time
5 fucking hours until you have to be up for your shitty job.
You sigh
You scroll through your phone
‘Just for a minute’
You say to yourself
One minute
Turns
Into 1 hour
Your bug eyes
Illuminated by a small screen in your hand
In a pitch black room
Pitch black except for your phone
If you fall asleep in the next few minutes
You’ll be able to get four hours of sleep
You stress about stressing,
Creating it.
Feeding it
There’s a kink in your neck now
Your eyelids feel weighted
And
The eyes sting a little
Your head hurts
You take a sip of water
Of course it goes down the wrong way
You cough
And gasp
Airless
but coughing up air
After 10-20 coughs and gasps
You settle down a little
You lay back down
Grab a pillow and put it directly over your face
Your in it now
The squeeze.
You finally drift off
And wake
So exhausted when you do
That all the changes you were going to make,
When your legs were angry at you,
They fade away.
‘Maybe tomorrow’
You tell yourself.
You’re too tired in the morning to skip the expensive coffee drink,
Too tired to wake up early and make breakfast
Or,
Lunch.
You’ll grab something cheap
From somewhere cheap
But first,
you’ll lay in bed as long as you possibly can
Before being late to your shitty job.
You rush through a shower
Brushing your teeth while in there
To save time.
You speed to work
In a panic that you’ll be late
Traffic has you stressed
You’re stressed about spending money on breakfast and lunch.
Money you don’t have
You’re low on gas
You’ll have to get gas
You’ll do fifteen dollars worth
Just enough to get by
Until payday
‘Oh well’
You tell yourself
‘No point in beating myself up about gas,
It can’t be helped
I have to drive
Don't I?’
The squeeze is tightening.
You get to work one or two minutes late
Hoping no one will notice
They don’t
but
They all notice the bags under your eyes
‘Like a racoon!’
One of them says
‘Only 8 hours to go’
You tell yourself
You take a breath
And
Begin.
And this happens
Day
After day
After day
After day
And you have restless nights
With angry legs
Night
After night
After night
After night
After night
And the days
And the nights
They add up to weeks
And the weeks
They add up to months
And after while
You are 29
And
You haven’t changed.