My most recent symptom is feeling like my tongue is swelling up as soon as I lay down, and I feel like any second my airway is going to be cut off––I can’t sleep––I am terrified of dying; all of my usual techniques don’t work like chugging water or sitting up and taking deep breaths or naming ten things I am grateful for or drawing a box on my thigh or acknowledging five things I can see, four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can taste, because all I can acknowledge is my not-actually-but-it-really-feels-like-it swollen tongue, and all I can be grateful for is that I haven’t stopped breathing yet, but nothing is working; it makes me want to cut my tongue out––because maybe that will work––and maybe if I didn’t have a tongue and couldn’t speak then I wouldn’t say anything stupid the next time I’m around him––because I always do––maybe I’m just in my head; I know my throat isn’t actually closing, and my mind is lying to me like it always does; maybe I didn’t actually say something stupid last Saturday night, but it doesn’t change the fact that my tongue is growing and growing and growing, and I’m thinking about the scissors or the knife I might use to cut it out then I’m thinking about your finger along the blade, and I’m remembering you cutting bread, meat, or something during our last date night and the blood everywhere (oh, God, it was everywhere); the only reason I knew it was an accident was because knives were never your weapon of choice––I remember it was maybe fire or maybe your words (maybe that’s just a cliché), and eventually I feel myself starting to get sick of the metaphors like you did and everyone else will but at least I can finally breathe.
***
And everything slows down.
Just for a couple seconds.
At least I can breathe.
In and out.
In and out.
In and––
Please keep breathing.
Just for another second.
And everything quickens once again.
