on end because i woke up yesterday stayed woken up alltheway until this morning and there is terror in me, terror in every single cell and i am afraid and afraid and i cannot sleep for it. i want to put my fear entire in my mouth where it is safe, where i can bite down on it at any moment, where i can swallow it down over and over again until it digests but my fear lives in my lungs instead because it lives in my lungs it lives in my blood and my heart and my whole entire body shaking shaking with it- a convulsion half like a death rattle cough half like a laugh the laugh scares me more and whatever the part of me that isn't me or the fear says "You have to laugh at it. You have to laugh at the way you stand outside a door and pantomime knocking without ever making contact because otherwise you would scream or cry and that would be worse to explain then the laughing or the knocking you're not doing. Sometimes you stand there hand raised and stop yourself before you can kick or collapse against or headbutt the door, anything to tell someone to open it, and you have to laugh because your laugh is silent anyways when you laugh like this. You have to laugh because you scream silent too and when you drive yourself to tears to knock on the door even then the knock is only the first step and every cell of you is still being circulated full of fear from your lungs. But the laughing keeps it all from shutting down before you knock." dead electric night and it is quiet in the winter as the clock ambles towards dawn and i am still all alight. Still too much in a body, too much to breathe right laughing laughing laughing silently because there's nothing else to do and it really does seem funny when i can't sleep from it. Might have to shut myself down the hard way. Might have to cover the eyes and the mouth until breath hisses against the suction against the palm and my eyes seal shut. if i can make myself small and quiet and hold my breath until the ribs are tight around it the fear goes away before i can. and when the fear is gone i can breathe in and out and in and out and the only thing that pours through me is pure elation when i laugh there is no scream i am trying to avoid just an absence of fear unfamiliar when i am done laughing now i can finally sleep.