Breathing Exercises

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I wish I had more to say. I wish I had more to do.

But here I am, sitting in my car under the hot baking sun of Texas, wondering what I should be doing right now. Are my hands right? Is my hair slicked with sweat? I must look like shit.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

My chest feels tight. Can an nineteen year old have a heart attack? Heat stroke? I knew I shouldn't have drank that chocolate shake from Whataburger; that shit looked a little fishy but at the time, I didn't give a fuck. Just like I never gave a fuck before about what I shovel into my mouth hole.

Why do I have to give a fuck now? Heart's racing. It's like I could feel the clogging of my arteries right now.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Here I am, debating about this. The mall is packed. I don't want to go in there. I hate malls. I hate stores. I hate people. I hate everything. Why is it so goddamn hot in July?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My finger twitched. Oh Lord. I'm going to die in this shitty car from heat.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My tongue feels dry and scratchy and it doesn't fit in my mouth. It's waging battle against a canker sore on the bottom of my mouth and let me tell you, it's losing gloriously. Fuck, it hurts.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Everything hurts. Maybe that's why I'm out here in the blazing heat of an afternoon.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I wish my mom asked me where I was going before I walked out the door. I wish she looked up from her plate of food and alcohol and asked me what the fuck I was doing today if I wasn't going to summer school for failing high school. I wish she asked me why I failed high school.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I wouldn't have even cared if the leftover cum from her boyfriend's came out of her mouth and landed on my forehead with a wet "smack". I just wished she asked. Instead, she's just watching TV and jabbering on about this week being the "lucky" week to win the lotto.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My palms are sweaty. I hate that feeling.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I keep going back and forth in my mind. Should I walk in there? What if there's a lot of people in there and they all judge me? What if they all look at me when I walk in there and keep looking, just pointing or staring or worse...laughing. What if they laugh at me and I go home with my head held in shame and I bury myself deep in my disgusting, depressed soaked filled bedsheets and I die?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Somehow, I wanted the bottom of the car to open so the Earth would swallow me up and carry me to a Hell that was better than this one I was living in now.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">All I can think about is how I flunked high school. How stupid I am. How fat I am. How my chin looks squished into my fat face and my cheeks puff out like butter melting under a heat lamp. I got an ingrown hair in an pimple. How fucked up is that?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I can't read like everyone else. Letters get messy and dizzy and I stop reading because it feels like I'm seven on the teacup ride and I can't keep my soda down. And then when I try to say the word "teapot" and it comes out as "depot" as I hear all the students snickering about how I'm a drug addict and I sit at my desk and try not to cry and vomit from the motion sickness.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My mom doesn't care. She never noticed her kid couldn't write or read very well. All that mattered was on Saturday mornings if I took out the trash and washed the week old dishes she left in the sink.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">So when kids picked on me for being fat, I was fat. I ate in my room, I ate at school, I ate in class, and I ate on the bus. Eating made me feel guilty but it made me feel distracted.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I can't count for shit either. Algebra started having letters in it and I got motion sickness from it. Word problems made everything harder.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Now everything is standardized tests and I can't pass them and I never could pass them. Tests made me sick.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Teachers didn't pay attention. Who would pay attention to a sad sack of pathetic shit? That's like stopping on a busy highway to check out a box of dog crap.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">When they see me get nervous and red and ill, they just told me to "breathe". Instruct me in that condescending voice.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">"Just breathe when you get scared." They kept telling me, as if that was the cure. All it fucking did was make me chicken out of things when I hit the "breathe out". If I wanted to talk to a girl, I'd take a deep breath and plunge right now but when I exhaled, I'd corner myself in an empty bathroom stall.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The exhalation is my way out. It always has been my way out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Just how I am. A scared little chickenshit, just like my dad told me when he left.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The mall is attracting more people. It's been half an hour and the leather of the seat is sticking to my back. I've earned nothing but a sunburn on my face and sweat that smelled like greasy fish sticks.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My mind is racing. Should I go in there? Should I go home?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Now the metal against my fingers are getting hotter and hotter. It's starting to burn a little bit. The black must be absorbing the heat or something. It's reflecting a light into my eyes, so much that I try to block it with my free hand.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I got nothing to lose, really. Except maybe a few CDs I acquired through five-finger discounts and the love letters I've written to a version of me that I always wanted to be. I guess in a way, it'll be embarrassing to dole those out. In retrospect, I should have hidden the porn of beautiful, busty women a little better instead of under my bed or on a desktop but all I wanted was for them to look at me through the night, so I didn't feel less shitty as a human being. That I was worthy of someone to fuck.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I didn't write a note. Fuck. Oh well. I can't write anyway.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I can do this. I won't be the little chickenshit forever, Dad. I'm doing this. I'm doing this and I'm going to be all over the news and I'm going to be famous for ten seconds, ten seconds more than I would have done in ninety years of my life.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Crap. I didn't think of a good reason for doing this. I'm not a Muslim and I certainly got no ties to any terrorist organization. Fuck. Is "fed up with everything" cliche? I think so. Are people going to think I'm doing this as some sort of lesser version of "sad teenager"?

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Are they gonna roll their eyes when they hear the news? "Oh, some sad fat kid? What, that's it?"

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Are the people who are going to die going to be mad? Like "Oh, I died for this shit? Get a fucking life, bro. What is this weak ass shit you're pulling?"

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I guess I'll just get as many as I can. Maybe it'll cover up the stench of desperation I got going on and people will excuse the lack of reason. Or come up with one. I never could come up with anything creative. I can't even come up with a cool note to end this all on.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">There's tears. Don't cry. Not now. I don't want to be this way. I hate this way. This stupid dumb body attached to this stupid dumb brain and mistaken for an ape. No. Apes can color and read and draw and create and invent and I'm just worthless pile of fat cells and hairy pimples.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">No chickenshit this time. Get out of the car. Go inside.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I'm at the door. I'm outside looking in. I'm an ugly person and I'm an ugly person on the inside. But this time, there's no out. Safety's off.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.89;margin-top:11pt;margin-bottom:11pt;"><span style="font-size:13.333333333333332px;font-family:Arial;color:#d5d4d4;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">My mom is going to hear about this on TV before they call her to identify me.

<span style="font-size:13.3333px;font-family:Arial;font-weight:400;font-style:italic;white-space:pre-wrap;">Breathe in.