Mapping The Storm
Entry by: writerIBXVEJZUDO
15th September 2017
Mapping the Storm
I only seem to write when I’m miserable. Ink across paper, tears across skin. I’m told that it’s good to keep a journal like this, to track these wild moods and make a map of the storm inside me. But the problem is it’s not a map, it’s just a record, a pitiful list. A map could show me a way to the edge of the woods, but instead I write words, insignificant black scrawls: futile, like dropping breadcrumbs along a path. I will only ever be able to trace my steps. Sometimes it does help, though, to let it all spill out, to feel cathartically cleansed. Sometimes it fools me into thinking that I’m finding my way out, only to look up and realise I’ve just made it to a clearing, and beyond the thick trees continue, gloomier than ever. Frustrated and in anger I rip out pages, throwing them across the room. The leaves fall pathetically, and my breadcrumbs blow away in the wind.
Tonight I’m at a hotel, in a grand ballroom. Rich curtains hang across ancient looking windows. Their glinting panes wink at me. The opulence of the chandeliers and the candle light reflect off the polished wooden floor. It’s a beautiful night, desperately beautiful. People talk and I smile, sipping wine and dancing. But colours begin to swim in front of my eyes. A woman in white and a man in black, and then a broader smudge of pastel violet. I can feel my skin turn cloudy and grey. At my wrists the veins grow in black silhouettes up my forearms. I clench my fists. Knuckles crack like frozen branches in the wind. I take another drink, let the bubbles tickle my tongue and then roll down my throat. Laughter comes to me from faceless figures, and outstretched arms invite me back. It’s too much to bear and I’m turning, walking, running, past the winking windows and up the stairs. I don’t stop moving until I find a space where I can be alone. It comes to me at last in the form of a smaller function room, abandoned apart from a low sofa and a bookcase set into the wall. I feel hollow yet weighted, and sink down into the cushions. The arms of the sofa curve round from the back, stretching forwards, far enough that I feel safely cocooned. They’re covered in a brownish pink velvet, quilted with matching buttons. The base cushions are a print of leaves and flowers. Broad magenta petals are clumped together amongst little white daisies and folding, mustard yellow perennials. All grow out of strokes of green blossom. My chest feels constricted and I loosen the fastening of my dress. The fabric lies heavily across me, and I want to crawl out of it, to crawl out of my skin even. I feel the emptiness in my stomach. I want to fill it up, I need to drown it. My eyes are closed and I’m watching the storm emerge, hearing the sky growl with the hunger that I feel. I need to be sick, but I’m not ill, just struggling to cope with the numbness. Finally, when I don’t think I can take it any longer, feeling rushes into me, and I am swelling with the consuming ache of sadness.
Tears rush down my itching cheeks. I welcome the misery, urging it to fill every void within me. I feel it prick the backs of my eyes, stinging the top of my nose, then running like phlegm down my throat. It finally fills my stomach and I wait until it soothes the arches of my feet. I am saturated. This hurricane has swept me up, a wild tornado, of which I feel every part. All control has been surrendered and I beg to disappear into the material beneath me. I let my hand fall to the side, run my fingers over the mossy carpet. Relaxing into the pain I feel myself starting to fade. Painted flowers
crawl up my sides; roots pull me under. Rain is pounding, soaking the soil that I am becoming. My sense of the wind weakens as I am drawn further from the surface. Sheltered in the ground, worms crawl across my skin, their trails replacing those once left by tears. I am disintegrated, yet more whole than ever. I am part of the earth, and I want to stay down here forever.
But time passes and I know that it cannot last. I will need to pick myself up, or somebody else will come to clean up the mess of my splintered soul. I will return to life for a while, but when I am calm and dull again I will begin to miss the sheer intensity of misery. Then the darkness will begin to creep in at my edges and I will return inevitably to a place of solitude where I can feed this crippling addiction. I am the storm chaser in his armoured van, suspended until the lightning comes to shock me, charging my yearning mind. I can never escape the storm, only map it, make a chart of its movements. Within it, I'm the sodden fields after the rivers have burst their banks. Without it, I’m a canyon, deeply empty, parched and cracked, waiting to be flooded again.
I only seem to write when I’m miserable. Ink across paper, tears across skin. I’m told that it’s good to keep a journal like this, to track these wild moods and make a map of the storm inside me. But the problem is it’s not a map, it’s just a record, a pitiful list. A map could show me a way to the edge of the woods, but instead I write words, insignificant black scrawls: futile, like dropping breadcrumbs along a path. I will only ever be able to trace my steps. Sometimes it does help, though, to let it all spill out, to feel cathartically cleansed. Sometimes it fools me into thinking that I’m finding my way out, only to look up and realise I’ve just made it to a clearing, and beyond the thick trees continue, gloomier than ever. Frustrated and in anger I rip out pages, throwing them across the room. The leaves fall pathetically, and my breadcrumbs blow away in the wind.
Tonight I’m at a hotel, in a grand ballroom. Rich curtains hang across ancient looking windows. Their glinting panes wink at me. The opulence of the chandeliers and the candle light reflect off the polished wooden floor. It’s a beautiful night, desperately beautiful. People talk and I smile, sipping wine and dancing. But colours begin to swim in front of my eyes. A woman in white and a man in black, and then a broader smudge of pastel violet. I can feel my skin turn cloudy and grey. At my wrists the veins grow in black silhouettes up my forearms. I clench my fists. Knuckles crack like frozen branches in the wind. I take another drink, let the bubbles tickle my tongue and then roll down my throat. Laughter comes to me from faceless figures, and outstretched arms invite me back. It’s too much to bear and I’m turning, walking, running, past the winking windows and up the stairs. I don’t stop moving until I find a space where I can be alone. It comes to me at last in the form of a smaller function room, abandoned apart from a low sofa and a bookcase set into the wall. I feel hollow yet weighted, and sink down into the cushions. The arms of the sofa curve round from the back, stretching forwards, far enough that I feel safely cocooned. They’re covered in a brownish pink velvet, quilted with matching buttons. The base cushions are a print of leaves and flowers. Broad magenta petals are clumped together amongst little white daisies and folding, mustard yellow perennials. All grow out of strokes of green blossom. My chest feels constricted and I loosen the fastening of my dress. The fabric lies heavily across me, and I want to crawl out of it, to crawl out of my skin even. I feel the emptiness in my stomach. I want to fill it up, I need to drown it. My eyes are closed and I’m watching the storm emerge, hearing the sky growl with the hunger that I feel. I need to be sick, but I’m not ill, just struggling to cope with the numbness. Finally, when I don’t think I can take it any longer, feeling rushes into me, and I am swelling with the consuming ache of sadness.
Tears rush down my itching cheeks. I welcome the misery, urging it to fill every void within me. I feel it prick the backs of my eyes, stinging the top of my nose, then running like phlegm down my throat. It finally fills my stomach and I wait until it soothes the arches of my feet. I am saturated. This hurricane has swept me up, a wild tornado, of which I feel every part. All control has been surrendered and I beg to disappear into the material beneath me. I let my hand fall to the side, run my fingers over the mossy carpet. Relaxing into the pain I feel myself starting to fade. Painted flowers
crawl up my sides; roots pull me under. Rain is pounding, soaking the soil that I am becoming. My sense of the wind weakens as I am drawn further from the surface. Sheltered in the ground, worms crawl across my skin, their trails replacing those once left by tears. I am disintegrated, yet more whole than ever. I am part of the earth, and I want to stay down here forever.
But time passes and I know that it cannot last. I will need to pick myself up, or somebody else will come to clean up the mess of my splintered soul. I will return to life for a while, but when I am calm and dull again I will begin to miss the sheer intensity of misery. Then the darkness will begin to creep in at my edges and I will return inevitably to a place of solitude where I can feed this crippling addiction. I am the storm chaser in his armoured van, suspended until the lightning comes to shock me, charging my yearning mind. I can never escape the storm, only map it, make a chart of its movements. Within it, I'm the sodden fields after the rivers have burst their banks. Without it, I’m a canyon, deeply empty, parched and cracked, waiting to be flooded again.
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