Page 10

I count the seconds between each buzz without meaning to.

One. Two. Three.

Too slow.

My leg bounces against the bench. I tell it to stop, but it doesn’t listen. My body rarely does. It hums as if it’s plugged into something too powerful, like if I stay still too long, I might vibrate apart at the seams.

Along the crack, ants crawl in a thin black methodical line. One of them breaks formation, circles back, then carries on as if nothing happened. I watch it as if it’s the most important thing in the world.

At least it knows where it’s going.

There are days when everything feels too bright, too loud, too fast. My thoughts race each other, and I can’t catch up. My body buzzes, my skin feels too tight, and I crave something to ground me. Pain, impact, noise. Anything that cuts through the chaos.

Manic days bleed into this. Three—no, four?—nights of fire in my veins, chasing highs at the club or at the elite circuit, fists flying because why the fuck not? The world’s a blur of lights and bass, and I’m king, untouchable, every punch landing like thunder because I need it to echo.

People think mania is just energy.

It’s not.

It’s pressure.

It’s your own skin feeling too tight. It’s knowing you’re spiraling and not caring because the fall feels better than the stillness. It’s choosing chaos because silence feels like suffocation.

And then there are days like this.

Where I sit in a holding cell staring at a crack in the wall and feel absolutely nothing. A vast, suffocating emptiness where fire used to rage. The walls of the cell feel closer than they should. And I know if I stay here too long, something inside me will snap. Soon I’ll start screaming like a madman, clawing at the bars, begging for air. I hate it. Hate it with a numb fury that terrifies me.

I drag a hand down my face and laugh quietly, the sound brittle.

If anyone asked, I’d tell them I’m fine.

I’ve been saying that since I was a kid.

I used to be happy.

Actually happy.

I remember laughing too loud. Running too fast. Climbing things I shouldn’t and scraping my knees bloody. I remember sunlight. I remember warmth. I remember a time when being alive didn’t feel like a performance.

And then there’s the blank spot.

A hole in my memory the size of a storm.

I was ten.

I don’t remember what happened, only the aftermath. The way the house went quiet. The way people started watching me as if I might shatter if they touched me wrong. The way my father suddenly kept me close, closer than my brothers, like he was afraid to let me out of his sight.

No one would look me in the eye when I asked why everything felt different. I learned early that some things don’t get talked about.

You’re just supposed to move on.

So I did.

Or I pretended to.

But something fractured after what happened to me. My brain rewired wrong, feelings crashing too hard or vanishing cold. Anger flowed easily. Recklessness too. Pain didn’t scare me like it did other kids. No. It anchored me and silenced the storm in my brain.

Whatever it was cracked me open like that wall, ants marched in—bipolar and BPD, they label it. Stratospheric highs where I’m god. Plutonian lows where pain’s my only tether.