It's like stepping in front of a bus, and praying the brakes don't fail.

Telling you. Telling you the truth. Telling you a story. A real story. My story. It's like plunging face first into dark, icy water, and hoping that as I'm gasping for air, and my lungs are slowly filling with water, that there is enough connection. There's enough understanding for you to reach into the water and pull me up. Grab me by the hair, my head, whatever, grab me and pull me from the depths before it's too late. Before I drown. Before it kills me.

I remember sitting at the picnic table, and pulling out my journal. I'd written 11 pages to read to her. I wrote about my heart, and how it was breaking. I wrote about my brain, and how it was refusing to work anymore. My hand gripped that pen for hours, scribbling until I was exhausted. Then I closed the journal and slept. I read it the next day, and I timed myself. I was afraid that it was going to take too much time, to read it to her.

I was sitting at the picnic table. Tasha on one side, and Leslie on the other. We had hot tea, I put splenda in mine because I didn't want the calories from honey. I asked if it would be okay if I didn't eat with them. They didn't eat either. I was shivering; trembling. I knew what was coming and I didn't know how to handle it. We walked around and waited. I clutched the journal to my belly.

We were sitting at the picnic table. Leslie whispered, "I heard you had something to read me?". I'd asked Tasha the weeks before, if she thought it would be okay if I read her some things that I wrote instead of just talking. I opened it up. It was hard to breathe. My hands were shaking like I had parkinsons. My lips stuck together. My heart wasn't beating anymore. I took a sip of my coffee, I felt like there was sand in my mouth and lead in my belly, and cottonballs in my throat.

I considered running. Dropping everything and running to the safety of my car.

I watched my hands shake, the pages of my journal being held between my fingertips. I took the deepest breath I could manage and I began "it's easier to write than to talk..."

I spilled, I caved, I abandoned my rules, I gave up. I shook. Tasha hugged me at the end and said I love you. Leslie said she could hear in my words how badly I wanted to value myself. I could hear them sigh as I read. I wanted to stop, to look up, and ask how, why, where, when.

How do I stop this?

Why can't I do this?

Why do I do this?

Where did this come from?

When will it end?

tell me. tell me. tell me. ANSWER ME. Please.

I kept going, afraid that if I stopped, I'd never speak again.

(I'm only afraid of what will happen next... what is waiting around the corner to drown me again? I'm tired of being so fucking scared.)