Nails

I knew I shouldn't have chewed my nails. Maybe if I'd let them grow out, I'd be able to claw my way out of this wooden prison. Alas, short nails are the price of anxiety. A toll that I happily paid. And now here I am. Suffocating. Dying. Buried alive.

They used to have bells that you could ring. You'd pay a ludicrous amount of money just to get a bell that you could pull if you needed to be dug up. But in this modern age, those bells became obsolete. After all, with all the medical technology we have, it's pretty easy to confirm that someone is dead. Really, truly, permanently dead. Not a lot of false alarms these days.

Except, of course, me. Guess I'm always the exception.

It's funny, really. It doesn't feel that different from a panic attack. Lungs tightening, breath rattling, eyes rolling wildly in my head, searching for oxygen that doesn't exist.

Anxiety and death really ain't that different. It's all just more of the same. As above, so below.

Maybe if I'd listened to my therapist I wouldn't be here. If I'd stopped fearing the worst. If I'd just allowed myself to take one large gulp of real air.

Who knew that biting my nails would be the nail in my coffin?