Not right

I am not quite right tonight. Not right in the head. The equilibrium is shot. Every thing said seems to be some slight, a critique. I have the self doubt upon me and there is no crawling out from under it.

There in the dark I feel the familiar twinge of bodily demands and now, I wonder if it would be too much to remove myself to deal with it. Are you touching yourself? No, or maybe, when the answer is yes. Shall I help you? Join in with you? Touch you too? How could I ask this, now, in this odd self conscious buzz of insecurities. So I lie stiff-limbed and hope it does not escalate, thinking of other times when I was more at ease with myself, not second-guessing.

Times like this are harder for me. Before, I would spiral down into more and more denial, no sex, no food, no alcohol, no bus to work, making myself ride in the cold and the dark without a light. Making myself work when I should sleep, making myself suffer for all the bad things I have chosen to shoulder.

This is a new era. I have a book and people like it and the natural end will not be where it once was. I must hook my fingers over the good and haul myself up and out of it. This mire. When things are not quite right in my head.