except biology,
that the pills are a mask,
that I am fooling myself
into feeling better,
that each day I get more addicted,
that I will be medicated
for the rest of my life.
I see the same faces every day
as I walk the snow-covered paths to class.
People I know nod and say, “What’s up?”
only it’s not really a question
and they don’t want a real answer.
No one wants to know how tired I am,
that I just got through having another panic attack,
that I’m perpetually late,
that I can’t look at food,
that I feel ugly.
Walking down the narrow path,
there is not enough space for this.
So I smile the smile I have perfected
and reply “hey” like everyone else.
I return my focus back down to the pavement
and watch for ice, the black kind
that you never see until it’s too late.
Most days it feels like I am watching a movie
where the sound isn’t in sync,
the speed is all wrong.
Either I’m moving too quickly
and the world is dripping along,
or the world is moving too quickly, cosmic,
and I’m oozing like a slug
barely able to pull my own weight.
It’s best if I keep moving
because if I stopped and stood still
people would see me shaking.
Nate and I talk on the phone now
about everything but Jason.
We stay on the phone for hours at a time.
He trusts me, tells me everything—
even the worst bits about himself
and his family,
and his ex-girlfriend he can’t move past.
It makes me like him even more.
It is after noon
and I haven’t spoken yet.
I have early classes on Wednesdays
and was out before the rest of my suite was awake.
I didn’t see anyone at breakfast
and my first classes were lectures.
I feel wrapped tightly, sealed.
Today is hurried.
There is no time for lunch,
only a piece of someone’s birthday cake.
When the sugar hits, I feel hot and sick—
like I am going to pass out.
I am with Rebecca, Rachel, and Jennifer
in the dining hall for dinner.
We are supposed to go to a party later.
They are talking about what they are going to wear
and who is going to be there
as I try to force down real food
and give my body what it wants,
but the lights are too dim
and the hum of people talking is like a swarm of bees.
I know I feel this sick because I haven’t eaten much.
I know that.
It makes sense, it is logical,
but there is this other part of me,
this really loud part, that is screaming, “Something is wrong.
You are seriously sick,
the kind of sick that comes out of nowhere and kills you
before you even have the chance to get to a doctor.”
But then I think of the cake,
and my empty stomach, and logic,
and I tell myself that I am okay.
But I must not look okay
because Rebecca has realized that something is wrong
and when she leans in to talk to me,
the other girls see it too.
Now I am the center of attention.
My craziness is the center of attention.
They all agree that it is the cake, that I really am okay,
but the voice in my head is louder than theirs
and I leave for Health Services
and Rebecca comes with me.
Coming home for winter break is like regression.
I feel like that high school girl forced to wear plaid,
forced in the door by midnight.
I feel like I cannot speak.
My voice is muffled
and the more I am stifled,
the more I cry like a child.
Little yellow pills
for the one who cannot control her adrenaline, her fear.
Little yellow pills
for a child who cannot deal with being an adult.
Little yellow pills
to make me forget.
I take the pills to protect myself,
but are they necessary?
Protection does not come in a bottle.
It is in me,
in my actions,
in my thoughts.
I am the best medicine for myself.
I am the cure
and the disease.
A few days after I get home
my mother wants to talk,
wants to know what a panic attack feels like,
wants to know if it hurts.
When I was sixteen my parents found my stash
and my mother admitted to smoking pot three times.
Now I ask her if she ever had a bad high, freaked out,
because it feels a lot like that.
She says no.
I ask her to think of a time when she was really scared.
She says once she thought she was being followed.
I tell her to remember how it felt—
the terror, the sweat, the heart racing—
to feel it now, in the living room
with the Persian rugs and antiques.
She doesn’t understand.
Why would she feel it now,
in her own house, where she is safe?
I tell her
that’s a panic attack.
Nate’s basement has wood paneling
and smells like mildew.
The couches are covered with faded floral
blankets and this time when we kiss no one is watching.
For every part of me there is a part of him to match.
His body fits with
mine so quietly, so comfortably.
Later, I am searching
for my underwear,
my socks, my belt,
clawing the carpet for the sticks that held my hair up,
searching for the bits to put myself back together.
My rings are on the table, my shoes
are on the opposite side of the room.
This fit scares me
into silence.
Isn’t the point of going away to college
to learn, to become an adult, to be independent?
But when I come home and my parents rein me in
and make sure they know where I am at all times
they take all that away from me.
Don’t they trust me?
Do they still think I need to hold their hands?
They’ll never let me go.
They’ll always be there
to catch me,
to grab me,
to pull me from all sides,
to push me in the direction of their choice.
What about my choice?
What about the fact that I can make it on my own?
Can’t they see that I’m okay
and the only disasters happened
when I was living with them?
Claire and I watch our camp video
and when I look at my face
and my eyes, I feel bad
because I know what’s in store for me in a few years.
I study my movements.
I look for a precursor to my anxiety.
I am not as outgoing as Claire, but no one is.
When the camera is on me
I constantly flip my long
brown hair
and never stay in frame very long.
But I look normal.
I look fourteen and as awkward as everyone else.
I think about other things
that could explain what’s happened to me.
When I was little I used to walk into mirrors.
I was also scared of the dark
and bridges and elevators.
When I was about thirteen
I was so nervous before flying
that I wrote a will on pale blue stationery
the night before a family vacation.
I addressed separate notes to all my friends and family
and doled out my journals, my jewelry,
and the money in my miniature safe.
I remember crying as I wrote.
I couldn’t stop imagining
our plane crashing into the ocean.
I hid the notes in a book on my shelf.
I still can’t remember which book they’re in
and I wonder what my parents will think
if they ever find them.
Some days I think of nothing but Nate
and his tenderness, his voice,
and I wonder why he doesn’t call
and if we were together out of convenience
because we each needed someone, something.
Sitting on this rooftop
I am stoned and too high.
New York City towers above and around me—
trees below like twigs, cars like ants,
people specks of dust
and here I am on top of it all,
thinking about jumping twenty-eight floors
and making it all stop.
I am so close to the edge that I could vomit,
so close that it would be easy to jump.
All the windows are mirrors
and I imagine myself
covered in makeup, painted-on smile,
dyed hair for a highlight
on an otherwise gloomy face.
I am so high it’s dizzying.
This world doesn’t make sense.
Nothing makes sense.
Up here perspective is blurred.
Things I once thought were untouchable
look like they are in my reach.
I am lying down now, chin resting on the edge.
I cannot tell if this is a breakthrough
or a breakdown.
I’m too close to tell.
Too close.
Too high.
The more panic attacks I have
the harder it is to get back to normal.
If I have an attack
I feel defeated, sick, and fearful
that it will happen again.
I am on guard.
I move slowly.
I make excuses to not go out with friends.
I need to put as much distance
between me and the attack as possible.
In high school I could never remember what happened
when you added two negative numbers together.
My father once explained,
it’s like riding an elevator farther down,
once you’re already in the basement.
That’s how I feel now—
stuck underground, and going deeper.
When kids make gross faces,
parents say, “One day
your face is going to stick like that.”
I’m afraid that one day
my panic’s going to stick
and it’s going to be my entire life,
every second,
and there will be nothing else.
Being back at school for a new semester
makes me think that I can start over—
that things can be better.
Every night before dinner
Rebecca and her friends call me
to meet them at the dining hall.
I like knowing that I always have someone to sit with,
that on the weekends I am guaranteed a place
in Rebecca and Rachel’s room
to get dressed before a party, watch movies,
do shots, or get stoned.
I am starting to feel things again.
I got my period today
and it is a gift.
The pain I am in is good.
The cramp in my uterus,
the blood, the aches, all good,
because I’d rather be in pain than be numb.
I can hear the birds in the distance.
I had forgotten what their voices sound like.
I can feel the sun on my face and legs.
I see bits of sopping green grass
poking out from the snow.
I smell spring, but only for a second.
Last year at this time
I was a senior in high school.
I had just finished my writing AP.
It was warm and beautiful
and I wonder if I was happy.
Today I feel unbelievably light.
For months I’ve been sick
from work and anxiety,
but now all of that is gone.
I have nothing to focus on—
no appointments, no deadlines,
and I don’t know what to do
besides lie back on my bed.
I am left with a feeling
and I cannot tell if it’s emptiness
or fullness.
v.
To celebrate the end of the year
all the girls take a road trip
to Jennifer’s house in Vermont.
We pile into two cars
and sing Indigo Girls the whole way there.
Usually it is just Rebecca and me,
but now we are all together—
wandering the little town, cooking in Jennifer’s kitchen,
packed into the bedrooms with sleeping bags.
I feel closer to them than before.
Ann, the girl Adam dated after me, is here
Rebecca and I drive back to school in her car.
She’s timid, sweet, not as bad
as I thought she’d be.
My father is coming tomorrow
to pick me up and move me home.
Everything needs to be packed and ready to go
by the time he gets here at ten.
A row of garbage bags
filled with my crap lines the room.
The plastic tubs are stuffed and taped closed.
Sarah already left
and nothing is on the walls or shelves.
It looks like when I moved in,
only this time the space is familiar, lived in.
I can’t believe this is it.
Tomorrow I go back
to live in my parents’ house.
In my belly
I have a mild pushing pain,
or rather, an annoying pressure.
Not quite a throb, more of a twinge,
but more than a twinge.
Not quite pain, more like an uncomfortability.
Not sure exactly where, though.
Every time I try to pinpoint it,
it disappears.
I can’t stand the mystery of it.
I hate the unknown and the ambiguous.
Sitting in the doctor’s waiting room,
I wonder what has taken root in my belly.
Maybe it’s a cyst on my ovaries.
I’ve heard they can grow to the size of a grapefruit.
The doctor looks like a grandfather
and I am embarrassed to have to spread my legs for him.
He pushes down on my belly from the outside,
reaches inside me and pushes up.
At the end of the exam
the doctor reports that I am fine.
Around two A.M. Nate is on top of me
and the phone is ringing.
Nate picks u
p and passes the phone to me.
It’s my dad.
All he says is I better be home in ten minutes.
Nate makes a joke about not wanting to drive me home,
says my dad will be at the door with a shotgun.
At first I am scared of what my parents are going to say,
but by the time I get my clothes on I am furious.
My parents and I have the same fight we’ve had for years.
When I stay out late, it keeps my father up,
which keeps my mother up.
Then I have to hear from my mother
how tired it makes my father
and how he has to get up for work at six A.M.
I am eighteen.
What do they expect me to do?
To not go out?
To be home at midnight?
Why is it my fault if they can’t sleep?
Plenty of parents manage to fall asleep
while their children are out of the house.
I can’t live like this.
I will never live at home again.
I go upstairs and get ready for bed.
I wash my face,
take out my contacts,
put on my glasses,
and pick up my pills.
I’ve been taking Klonopin for more than six months.
I wonder if it still helps,
or if I have gotten better on my own,
or if it is a combination of the two.
Being with Nate is hard.
There is no accountability.
He pours himself into me—
tells me about his family, his fears,
how depressed he was before we knew each other.
He expects me to hold the weight
and then disappears for days.
I call Claire every morning
even though I know she’s already left for work.
I like leaving her long messages
that she’ll hear when she gets home.
Today Claire picks up after only two rings.
Everything she says sounds rehearsed.
“Joelle went into cardiac arrest yesterday afternoon.
Her boyfriend found her.
I woke up at 6:45 this morning,
the same time she died.
I just knew.
The doctors don’t know why she died.
The police think she overdosed,
so they took her journals.
The doctors think it was meningitis
so they made us take some pills.
No one has any answers.”
I ask her if she wants me
to come into the city right now.
She says, only if I need to.