Inside

Surely it can't carry on like this.

Can it?

I know I'm always bleating on endlessly that I'm afraid I can't cope - but really, I don't think I can.

As the Queen Of Planning, I am thinking I should plan for not-coping now. How might it manifest itself? Will I unravel, like wool? Boil over, like milk? Shatter like glass? Stretch to the point of breaking, like an elastic band? Crack in half like a piece of dead wood? Melt like wax? Crumble into dust when you touch me, like old paper? Fade and disappear like film exposed too early to the light?

If I just let the tide of tiredness break its wave over me, I will be washed away like a bird's footprints on the sand.

These days, I struggle to hold myself upright, at times. I stagger, catch onto furniture as a black shutter comes down behind my eyes. Other times I can't breathe, have to remind myself how to do it: out and then in, and s.l.o.w.l.y s.l.o.w.l.y again. I cannot sustain a thought, my brain feels dulled.

There are only a few things left that are keeping me connected to the world. Powerful voodoo, but strands as fine and delicate as cobwebs. How easily they snap.

When I was young, I used to have dreams that I was falling. Now I have that sensation all too easily in my waking day. I feel one of those silken threads break, and I drop a little. That jolt of stepping unexpectedly off the kerb.

I think that's what not-coping will feel like. A step down that wasn't anticipated, and then falling and falling and falling. Tumbling through space into the darkness, spinning away from the blue-green familiar like an astronaut detached from the mother-ship.