Lt. Dan

My therapist once told me, “You are the guiltiest feeling person I’ve ever met” and just to prove her right, I took it to heart. An astrologer said, “You have so much water in your chart. What is it like to feel the emotions of every single person alive, everyday?” and I wept because I sensed he was displeased. A teacher told my parents “She’s very sensitive. Far more than the other kids in her class.” I took my SATs at 9 years old, but they encouraged my mother to hold me back because of how my eyes glistened when I heard the word no. She told them to go to hell. So I cried my way through my education until high school when they said “You take everything so personally, you’ll never survive in a company environment. You wouldn’t make a good employee.” So I employed myself (out of spite or…necessity) and then later, I hired 200 people. A boyfriend told me “Don’t be so dramatic, everything isn’t a movie.” Fine, so it’ll be an album then. The doctor said “This shouldn’t hurt a bit.” I tread daily on a minefield that leaves me classifying the variations in footsteps, the tonality in voice, a change in breath. “Is everything okay? You seem mad” is my pledge of allegiance to this tightly wound bundle of flesh. I am cut open, butterflied and flayed, with every single nerve exposed like live wires and, yes, they all hurt to touch. Each interaction is a litmus test of how well liked I am, and therefore how worthy to live. I wake up every morning and the moral barometer resets, T-minus 12 hours to prove to myself that I am not the bad person I believe I must be. Sleep, repeat. An amnesiac nightmare. Prometheus on a rock and the gull in my guts is myself. I once envied those with greater armor, but not anymore. “Why do you care so much?” Guard yourself from the little grievances, but the shield does not differentiate. The space where I am vulnerable to the pain that passes through is an entry point for the microscopic good that others may miss. I live in technicolor torment. If I could do it over again and choose the comfortable grey, I would seize a knife and cut the little keyholes back into my every limb. So the light can get in.

sometimes u need a little alone time to re-build urself and remember who the fuck you are and that’s okay

I am keeping a secret. I am sucking on it like a lozenge that just won’t get smaller. I am passing it back and forth between my teeth, like a ball on a field between the legs of a bored player. It is not a happy secret, like a diamond in a velvet box in a sweaty pocket. It’s a secret like a loaded gun sewn into the lining of my sweater’s hood, aimed directly for the back of my head. It is a cartoon piano suspended above me. It is a manhole threatening to spontaneously collapse beneath my feet. It is a cloud of noxious gas meticulously attached to only the molecules I misguidedly breathe. It is in my shadow, and it singes the concrete where I stand. It is the sad clink of an empty glass on New Year’s Eve. It is a nap in the passenger seat from which I will never wake up. I am keeping a secret. I am hoarding it. You will find it amongst yellowed mountains of books in a garage, when you find me. This is not a promise, it is a confession. I am keeping a secret.

gonna be a tough thing deciding which writing to post here and which to save for the records. lately i’ve been writing constantly from morning to night. not for any reason. just a compulsion. having conversations and my hands are simultaneously typing away in a world and ambience of their own. ambidextrous brain. master of none.

choking on water is the worst because how do you stop choking? drink something? well ive got some bad news for you

Lean your head forward, preferably to knee level, and let the water kind of drain out of your mouth. When your are able to, take deep slow breaths. No heimlich maneuver or physical assists from somebody else should be used beyond this, otherwise you could vomit and escalate the issue. Its about keeping the larynx open. Hopefully this helps.

Reblog to fucking save a life.

The Heimlich maneuver and upper back slapping should only be employed if someone who is choking stops producing coughing sounds and is unable to talk at all.