Anxiety

It was a great swelling of emotions. He could not place it, could not give it a name. All he knew was that this happened a lot. Especially after he spent time with large crowds of people. They had all been his friends. He was walking, fast, shy of running, feet walking one past the other, stretching out, too fast, if he started leaping, bouncing off the ground, it would be considered running. The air was frigid. They had just left the bowling area. His eyes were stinging. This happened almost every time. They had all been his friends, different degrees of intimacy, and yet, this feeling still came. It was as if all the substance had been sucked out of his chest, it was as if his stomach were hollow. If there were anything in it, he would feel nauseous, sick. The world in front of his was bright, and carried on. Inside his head, a storm raged, a storm that threatened to break out through the corners of his eyes. His feet started to hurt, as they hit the stone pavement far too hard, and far too fast, and far too frequently. The air smelled of pizza and smoke, and sounded of too many people, and too many horns. All inconsequential, no matter how loud they brayed. It tasted cold, almost as if the air were making his taste buds shrivel up, and curl into themselves.

It was a great swelling of emotions, he fought back the tears in his eyes, no, at this point, he did not need to fight them as much as just not let himself break. The dam he had built up over many years was strong, the lock that opened it was rusty, all he had to do was make sure to go nowhere near the lock, because if he did, all that water would come rushing out. His ears tingled, not in a good way. When it came rushing out, his eyes would start to flow, his nose stuffed, his cheeks would fill with color, his ears would become red. His vision would blur, his tongue would taste salt. His ears would hear nothing but his own sniffling. He did not have to fight them as much as let the rust built up by doing nothing. And yet…

Yet, here it was. This great upswell of emotion. A great wind on a quiet moonless summer night. Powerful, unexpected, welcome? He welcomed it, intuitively, he knew it felt good to feel, even if it felt this bad to feel this, whatever it was. This emptiness, this overwhelmingly heavy emptiness.

He turned the key over in his fingers as he reached the bike station. Fuck, it was cold. He was cold and hot inside, and none of it made sense. He put it in with a flourish, trying his best to maintain a semblance of normalcy. And yet, this was the most normal thing in the world to him. He pulled out the bike, and was off.

The wind rushed in his face, it’s screeching screams but nothing to the raging storms inside of him. He could not place this feeling.