Half Asleep

My body, a standstill, the motion of breath, absent.

The armchair felt unnerved. Our only separation was the rejection of entity, of self, of worth. The waiting room was silent, the absence of motion prevalent, suffocating.

The pale white door slid open, I didn’t turn to look, couldn’t, but I could still see.

A single step, and the room burst forth with the motion of a single second, my chest burning and bursting to inhale, the light flicked in the way only it could, the armchair flattened melding to my form, my back arched itself hungry and desperate for air. I turned towards the door, towards the arrival my mouth gaping and eyes bulging only for everything to-

Stop.

A single kitten, a pale creature, took its second step into the room. My body strained in a phantom scream to complete its intake, my lungs creaked and groaned, choking with an inability to choke. My eyes frozen in a widened fixation of the visitor, skin on the verge of tear, on the verge of self-rejection.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe, I could not breathe

The weight of stillness crushed my body, crushed the room, with the weight of a thousand tons, and yet the kitten moved, the kitten moved freely.

My mouth let out a nonexistent scream, suffocated and incoherent.