Overstimulation

Too many times during the week,
too many people,
want too much of her.

This is a girl,
who now can’t
even keep the days
of the week straight—
can’t go a day without
running because she need to
release the tension
mounting within her tendons.
She savors the time alone in the shower,
just washing the day’s grime from her
dirt-ridden scalp.
She can’t drink without blacking out
because she is so over-exhausted
the world becomes overwhelming as
she tries to self-medicate.

Too many times during the day
too many annoyances
leave her leaning toward solitude.

This is a woman
whose mouth can no longer
fake a cinnamon-roll-sweet smile—
she can’t handle the dim-witted questions from
oblivious customers and responds with hidden sarcasm.
She worries she’ll be stuck in a job that doesn’t
stimulate her mind enough—
already boredom frightens her
into the fetal position underneath
the warmth of a cotton sheet.
She is too young, to feel so scattered
and unhinged—moving all the time,
always searching
for a place to call home,
and a space to call her own.

Too many times
too much
of her life is skimmed over.

This is a woman
who has become
withdrawn from any sort of romantic relationship
because it’s too much work to begin again
with a stranger—
The thought of a simple lunch date suffocates her.
She wakes in cold sweats from nightmares
of becoming an alcoholic like her father
but conversely only feels alive when thoroughly buzzed.
She worries she isn’t living up to her full creative potential,
and that life won’t get any sweeter than in her twenties.
The lines on her once ocean-calm like face have deepened,
at the thought of missing out—
because responsibility and obligation
have shackled her down to the bottom of a river,
her air supply diminishing second by second.
Her once pristine diamond-clear eyes have clouded and dimmed,
the light has begun to flicker out.