Loco | Motive.
It’s 4 a.m.
I wake.
I’m sweating.
Again.
Just like the night before and the night before that.
A week prior I ask the doctor why while she is cupping my balls.
She runs some tests.
Says I am healthy.
She says it is my anxiety.
I eventually fall back asleep.
I wake.
It’s 7 a.m.
I have five minutes of quiet before my mind starts racing.
It builds momentum slowly, like a locomotive.
But once it gets going it doesn’t stop.
By 7:30 a.m., 6,000 tons of thoughts are screaming through my skull like roaring metal.
I sit down.
I begin to write and if I write long enough and well enough, the thoughts don’t slow but they become bearable and when they become bearable I can live with them and if I can live with them I can dance with them.
At 9:30 a.m. my therapist calls me back.
For an hour we work to make sense of these thoughts.
He has a big whiteboard.
He points to it and teaches me how my brain works differently than other people’s and that’s why at times I feel like I’m mad.
I am mad.
At 6 p.m. I ‘m having coffee with a pretty face.
I think to myself that it might be time to lay off the stimulants.
She comments on how calm I am.
It’s ironic.
If I am thankful for anything, it’s that she can’t see the war inside my head.
By Cole Schafer.
P.S. One day these one-minute writings will be a big book called “One Minute, Please.” Can I let you know when that day comes? You can say yes, here.
