Damn Still

My hands feel for the balls of my bare feet. The realness of me slowly being realized again.

There is a chubby big toe connected to it, heels that land flat-footedly. 

Gravity keeps me to the ground, but sticks me to my chair

where I don't move out of anywhere.

My fingers and eyes, the only things to move for hours. There is an electric circuit in my brain commanding my next steps. I am at the whim of my calendar, of invites accepted and hopefully declined, or graciously tentatively accepted.

If there is an hour, it is not to be wasted on feeling real. The realm I work in contains the abstract list of critical issues: human rights, climate change migrants, the Indo-Pacific Strategy, my lunch time. 

A flurry of thoughts push against each other, fighting for first place. Fighting to be the next email, the next note I write to be left somewhere on the internet for people with a proper security clearance to read.

I'm glad I gave up 3 hours.

I'm glad I spent 3 hours.

Hours are spent. Not given up. I teach myself again and again. 

With my father. 

The drive was full of stories. My ancestors. I always want to hear about them, because I need whatever they had to make the big names they did. Agh. My mind off the one thing that could hurt my sleep again tonight, among many things: like a long night conversation with my sister, like game addiction to League with someone equally addicted, like fear forcing me to stay awake and think, like men who want me.

I bleed through the words I write. Each one bringing me closer to the presentation I will make for important faces I don't know. 

There is one half cup of artichoke juice that was once warm that 7 am morning. The one my Dad spent all night boiling. I sip the lukewarm juice. 

Some things don't change. I still procrastinate. I still run away until I can't run anymore from things that I'm scared of most. 

Why am I so so so scared of this important project? 

What will happen to me if I allow myself to get it wrong? I keep doing this and it frustrates me, yet I forgive myself each time. I do it again. Anyways. 

Because I'm always scared. I'm as afraid as I am ambitious. 

That is who I am right now. One of many. 1 of 300 folks vetted for this position. Among the graduate students, the Yales and Harvards, and the ones that have always made it. Here I am at State to do whatever the fuck I want. Make the most of. Yet I sit still scared. 

21, and I know nothing. I'm going to all the places. Every place. Every new face. New conversation topics to spill into any space.

To hide from my own.