I Don't Want to Be Crazy Read Online Free PDF

something.
    Sitting on this rooftop
I am stoned and too high.
    New York City towers above and around me—
trees below like twigs, cars like ants,
people specks of dust
and here I am on top of it all,
thinking about jumping twenty-eight floors
and making it all stop.
I am so close to the edge that I could vomit,
so close that it would be easy to jump.
    All the windows are mirrors
and I imagine myself
covered in makeup, painted-on smile,
dyed hair for a highlight
on an otherwise gloomy face.
    I am so high it’s dizzying.
This world doesn’t make sense.
Nothing makes sense.
Up here perspective is blurred.
Things I once thought were untouchable
look like they are in my reach.
    I am lying down now, chin resting on the edge.
I cannot tell if this is a breakthrough
or a breakdown.
I’m too close to tell.
Too close.
Too high.
    The more panic attacks I have
the harder it is to get back to normal.
If I have an attack
I feel defeated, sick, and fearful
that it will happen again.
I am on guard.
I move slowly.
I make excuses to not go out with friends.
I need to put as much distance
between me and the attack as possible.
    In high school I could never remember what happened
when you added two negative numbers together.
My father once explained,
it’s like riding an elevator farther down,
once you’re already in the basement.
That’s how I feel now—
stuck underground, and going deeper.
    When kids make gross faces,
parents say, “One day
your face is going to stick like that.”
I’m afraid that one day
my panic’s going to stick
and it’s going to be my entire life,
every second,
and there will be nothing else.
    Being back at school for a new semester
makes me think that I can start over—
that things can be better.
    Every night before dinner
Rebecca and her friends call me
to meet them at the dining hall.
I like knowing that I always have someone to sit with,
that on the weekends I am guaranteed a place
in Rebecca and Rachel’s room
to get dressed before a party, watch movies,
do shots, or get stoned.
    I am starting to feel things again.
I got my period today
and it is a gift.
The pain I am in is good.
The cramp in my uterus,
the blood, the aches, all good,
because I’d rather be in pain than be numb.
    I can hear the birds in the distance.
I had forgotten what their voices sound like.
I can feel the sun on my face and legs.
I see bits of sopping green grass
poking out from the snow.
I smell spring, but only for a second.
    Last year at this time
I was a senior in high school.
I had just finished my writing AP.
It was warm and beautiful
and I wonder if I was happy.
    Today I feel unbelievably light.
For months I’ve been sick
from work and anxiety,
but now all of that is gone.
I have nothing to focus on—
no appointments, no deadlines,
and I don’t know what to do
besides lie back on my bed.
I am left with a feeling
and I cannot tell if it’s emptiness
or fullness.

v.
    To celebrate the end of the year
all the girls take a road trip
to Jennifer’s house in Vermont.
We pile into two cars
and sing Indigo Girls the whole way there.
Usually it is just Rebecca and me,
but now we are all together—
wandering the little town, cooking in Jennifer’s kitchen,
packed into the bedrooms with sleeping bags.
I feel closer to them than before.
    Ann, the girl Adam dated after me, is here
and at the end of the weekend
Rebecca and I drive back to school in her car.
She’s timid, sweet, not as bad
as I thought she’d be.
    My father is coming tomorrow
to pick me up and move me home.
Everything needs to be packed and ready to go
by the time he gets here at ten.
A row of garbage bags
filled with my crap lines the room.
The plastic tubs are stuffed and taped closed.
    Sarah already left
and nothing is on the walls or shelves.
It looks like when I moved in,
only this time the space is familiar, lived in.
    I can’t believe this is it.
Tomorrow I go back
to live in my parents’ house.
    In my belly
I have a mild pushing pain,
or