Breathe :: juniper standalone

[wimdy]

The door is so far away. The dull white paneling of the room looks like it's rippling around me, creating a vortex that's drawing me farther and farther away from my only escape. The while carpet is crawling, thousands of tiny little creatures scurrying at the foot of my bed. Everything is tilting and whirling around me and it's driving me insane. I think I'm going to be sick. I already am.

I get sick a lot, recently. I'm sick every day. I curl in on myself with the feeble hope that maybe delving into myself will make me better, but it doesn't. There's nothing to delve into. If anything, I'm skinnier than ever before. I'm a flesh bag of jagged angles and harsh lines, all deathly-pale skin and chalk-weak bones. I'm frozen to the quick, snug in two sweaters and sweatpants and three blankets, yet I'm sweating as if I'd run a marathon. My woolen wonderland doesn't even allow me to move. I've been in it so long that I've become tangled and twisted and trapped within its many layers. I simply don't have the energy required to carefully pluck my limbs from the snares in which they've been caught. Ever little shift makes the cocoon of sheets and sweaters scratch against my dried, sallow skin. I'm dizzier than a canary in a coalmine and I can't find my way out of the dark tunnels around me, the swirling interior of my head making me sway and squirm with ever required move. I can hardly move at all, my body so exhausted that I barely move an inch before I feel as if I've run a mile. Everything in me aches with the mere thought of movement, rigid muscles protesting the slightest of twitches. I haven't felt this sick in ages, to the point where I wonder if I'll ever see the light of day again. I haven't eaten much here to begin with but I haven't eaten in eighteen straight days, my body so used to the minimal amount of food that it had been receiving that it has suddenly gone into shock at the loss. It's not like my body had liked the food anyway. There had been no change when I'd started eating, only that it made me sicker. My body rejected everything I had tried to put into it, purging itself within a matter of minutes. I'd gained no weight, had felt no better. If anything, I'd felt weaker, like my body was giving up on even trying to keep itself running.

I don't want this to be the way I go. I don't want to be found wrapped in death upon a bed of white, body gone limp within the harsh restraints of frailty. I'm not meant to die in the prison I've made for myself, the unending cycle of self-deprivation that had come to define my life in this forsaken place. I'm meant to live on. I want to live on. I want to be happy and walk and scream and curl into the arms of a boy who smells of trees and fur and sincerity. I can't, but it's the tiniest of thoughts that makes me want to continue to move and regain all that I have lost. I know not everything will be alright, not everything will be the same, but it will be okay. And okay? It's all I can ask for.

I can hear the beginnings of stirrings beyond my door, the muddled whispers of souls walking along the path of repentance and salvation making their ways past my door and into life. I want to join them, walk among them, leave this confinement that so strangles me. My body is so stubborn to obey my commands, a low whine escaping through my split lips as I try to pull out of the mess of blankets. Slowly, and with far more effort than it should take, I pull myself limb by limb from my tangle of sheets, pushing them away as roughly as my weak body can take. My balance is tilted as I straight up, trying to push myself to my feet and gain back what little balance I must have possessed just days prior, but it is of no use. My legs are tired of the struggle already and buckle beneath me, my body falling gracelessly towards the carpet, landing with hardly a sound. The only sound that is made is my own cry, my brittle bones rattling inside of me at the impact and screaming at the cruelty of it all. I tried to eat. I tried to move. I tried to live, yet here I am lying on the floor. I sob soundlessly into the fuzz beneath me, unable to move as pain courses through my every cell. The muted words of those beyond fall upon my ears, my breathing caught in my throat as I try to grasp onto what they say, but it is just beyond my grasp. All I can hear are the lilting tunes of my mother, her voice far away but so tangible by my ears. I want nothing more than to reach out to her, have her pick me up, and leave my fears behind. I am terrified of being found like this, arms outstretched in a hopeless attempt for safety. My eyes flutter, senses gone cold as I let myself sprawl limp across the floor, reaching bonelessly for the door. It is only moments before my eyes close completely, giving up on even trying to stay awake as I feel myself fall into the arms of blissful dark.

---

"We'd found her passed out in her room. She wouldn't respond to anything. We thought we'd lost her."

"Her body is trying to give up. She pushed it too quickly after being still for so long. It was too tired to keep up."

"But we've been trying to take it slowly. She was just getting sicker everyday, even with the anti-nausea medication."

"It's not just a matter of nausea. She hasn't eaten properly in months. Food is foreign to her body now, so it's going to take time."

"But she'll be okay?"

"Yes, I have a feeling she'll be just fine."

---

I can hear people speaking around me, but my body refuses to act upon the rush of information and stimuli. There's suddenly too much and my mind is swimming, trying to sort out everything that is suddenly crashing around me. There is noise and bright light beyond the shield of my eyelids, things that I should react to, but my system is in shock. Everything smells clean and sterile and the strong scent of soap makes me want to gag, but I find I can hardly even breathe. There is something blocking my airway and I try hard to breathe in of my own accord but find I can't do so. Beeping gets louder around me and suddenly my eyes are being forced open, light flashing upon guarded pupils not used to the onslaught of color. It strikes through me like a knife, my head screaming as I am suddenly a flurry of movement. My arms are coming up to strike the hands and light away, pulling at wires and ripping at secured tape. Every actions spears through me, my body writhing as I shove my hands up towards my face, trying to get rid of whatever impedes my life.

There are hands on me then, holding down my bloody arms and a voice insisting I calm down. "It's just a breathing tube, Miss Bay! Stay calm! We're taking it out, but please, just calm down!" There's a suddenly heaving press against my chest and I cough, my throat constricting around the tube that has supposedly kept me alive. My eyes squeeze shut, tears rolling down my cheeks as finally, finally there is a tugging and then the tube is gone. I'm left grasping at the air, crying out in triumph as my lungs inflate and deflate of my own doing. My throat feels raw and my chest heavy, but I am breathing and it feels like the most glorious thing in the world. I am singing to the stars in tunes of labored gasps, but it is the most beautiful thing I have heard in quite a long time. My eyes are opened again, light flashed in them and fingers held up. I don't hear the question that is directed at me, an inquisitive face out of focus just behind the fingers speaking to me in hushed tones, but there's no need to hear it.

"Two," I rasp out, my voice shaking and breaking with such a simple word. It's enough though, and the face is smiling as the fingers are lowered.

"It's good to see you awake, Miss Bay. You gave us all quite a scare there."

My only response is to give a small, weak smile, my eyelids slipping a little. My body feels so tired, so exhausted, though I must have been out for an extended period of time. I don't feel much better than I last remember, my limbs still stinging with the pain of struggle and effort, but I am alive and that is all that matters.

"You know you can't do this again, right? You cannot let yourself fall to such waste. You have to keep yourself healthy. I know it's going to be hard, especially with your history, but we're all here to help you. You know that, right?" the doctor drawls, staring at me intently. There is a monotonous plasticity in his voice, but I cannot let myself be disgusted by the false sincerity any longer. I am alive. I nod meekly, sighing in relief when he smiles in return before standing up and walking away. In the moments he is gone, I looks at the white room I'm in. Machines, charts, graphs. My name is labeled on sheets of paper next to my bed with status reports and disparaging comments about my compliance over the past few months, the messy scrawl outlining every meeting that had gone wrong, every trip that had ended with me leaving stoic as always. However, despite all of the pain I feel and all of the troubles of the past, I find that I don't care. There is only one thing that matters, and that is the last line on the page.

'Wants help. Will definitely, no doubt, recover in time.'