A Tired Musician

he bangs on my door, it slowly creaks open; he is standing perfectly straight, his arm outstretched, holding my sleeping pills (which he went and got i v appreciate much thank), drops them at my feet (i am laying on the floor. says nothing. walks away, an extremely intense look on his face. the meds bearer hast given me mine gifts and now i can sleep, thank you med bearer

i hear scuttling down the stairs at 4 am. i know who it is. he craves the snaccs. the hallway light turns on. i dare not exit my room

it is midnight. he scuttles. i hear water. i know not to use any water in the house for the next three whole ass hours (why he shower so long??? why??)

every fucking time i walk into a room and hes just standing there, minding his own business, i shriek like i saw the ghost of my great aunt meredith who died tragically of consumption. but no, tis not margaret, it is in fact b r o t h e r. hes eating pizza. he is annoyed that i fear so hard. (i am also annoyed i fear so hard)

we have fun here.

some background info; im a sophomore in high school, i have severe anxiety, depression, paranoia and insomnia, and sensory issues, like as close to debilitating without quite crossing the line as possible, i had an ungodly amount of mental health crises last year, i had a severe panic attack on saturday and another on monday, and on monday i managed to wheedle my generally insensitive and willfully ignorant mother into allowing me my second mental health day of the year, which, btw, is already a quarter done with, and now she is harping in me about not making this a pattern and how she is suspicious of how helpful this actually is.

now, after a panic attack as absolutely massive as the two i recently had, the only thing i have thus far found that really helps is multiple hours in a dark room, surrounded by soft things, unbothered by people or noise. that ain't fucking possible at school. so i need to stay home on those days. and she has seen the goddamn consequences of me attempting to go, or actually going. it is the farthest from pretty.

we're doing a stupid group exercise about native american tribes, and mrs murphy had us say things we know about native life, and i have qualms

1- the questions too broad. as i will keep saying until i die, theres no such thing as pan-indian, so you need to narrow it the fuck down, and dont mix and match this shit thats not how this works

2- my classmates have such incorrect, vaguely racist assumptions, and mrs murphy just accepts it as fact, like bitch no, they didnt and dont "worship animals" thats not really what their practices were at all and no, they didnt all live in teepees, thats the nomadic tribes of the plains. i dont expect yall to be experts, but try a little harder. also, i hear someone call native culture primitive one more time and i will throw so many hands

3- every two fucking seconds she uses a past tense verb. bitch im right here. bitch the tribes are still thriving, if somewhat subjugated and relegated to reservations, and certainly marginalized. i assure you the entirety of native american tribes didnt magically die out while we were sleeping

"where did these tribes live, how did these tribes operate, what was their religion"