she was in so much pain she could barely see through it.  

never could she learn to breathe that thick despair, so acrid and tangible, opaque in its way.  it was like everything was grey and she was so much bubble-gum in the face of the universe. everything about her was an insignificant half-thought, spiralling, being carried on the back of existence, far beyond her control.

she was unable to pause for breath; everything was equating to all the bruises of life.  all the little things piled up and pyred: burning away into despair and frustration.  she was a mockery, yes.  she'd made a fool of herself, yes.  she was a burden, oh yes.  over and over and over, the vicious voice in her head distorting and recalling.  harsh koans, that voice meditated on.  harsh visions it produced.  told her she'd pushed them away. told her she'd sickened them - these people she'd grown to love, learned to appreciate, found compassion for and had grown dependant on willingly, at a time when she'd thought she'd reached a dry place, resigned to the strange comfort of alone. at that time, she had found her niche, unasked for but embraced entirely and overwhelmingly.  and now everything was so very wrong, stupid, stupid – the maddened voice stabbing wildly at her in a half dream - not coherent enough to counteract, too fleeting to build defences against.

inhaling on her past indiscretions, she'd smoke that cyanide up - she'd invite all that trauma into her universe and let it sit.  it was the unreality of her life: all the wrong facts and the half-emptying; every slight, every cold look; every unanswered call and every day spent in an unrelenting solitude.

she knew this all to be false outlook: that the miracle of life was a beautiful thing (hollow words she’d mantra now, without feeling) and that every moment, whether painful or joyous, was a gift to be savoured (she knew this, she really did) but she also knew that there was something blocking her view right now, at this time, here in her head.  there was something nauseating in the air of reality, shaping every little knock into its own rosebud of pain, shrouding her perception, scraping and picking at her happiness and her sanity.

and when she found she could not breathe her own existence, she'd smoke that cyanide up and let go.