I can I know

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, The Insides of My Mind, Cyclones, etc.

Having lived in Bali for the better part of the last 2 years at the time, I had become somewhat used to the physical sensations of random earthquakes. But still, they scared me. A lot.

Having lived in my own head for the entirety of the last nearly 404 months (at the time), I was also incredibly familiar with the unsettling feeling of everything I’d ever known suddenly starting to shake, then stopping just as suddenly to the point I would start to wonder if I am crazy or the world is. (Turns out it’s both.) Pretty scary as well.

So, when someone brought the prompt of extreme weather events, or natural disasters, to writing group one day, I was on it. If there’s one thing my mind is for sure, it’s a natural disaster. Striking, terrifying, weirdly beautiful if you know what to look for but always with a looming threat of death, and as unpredictable as they come.

It may have been a full year since I’ve written this one, but what even is time.

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Internal Earthquake

A now familiar sense of something,
not quite dread, not quite fear,
washes over me as the earth around me
begins to quiver and quake. Sometimes, a
large truck will rumble by, and I’ll brace
myself. Sometimes, nothing but the quiet
and an intrusive thought will bring on the same
effects. False alarms. Hypervigilance.
My body and mind on standby for
events out of my control. What are
those feelings? When vibrations strike,
I wait for them to pass. When all is calm,
I wait for them to strike. Will something
big and disastrous happen one day? Maybe.
I do not wish to spend my days taking on
the anxieties of the future. I brace myself,
and keep going.

10.14.24

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