Splintering (A sketch)

These storms came. Sometimes, even most times, they were not so severe as they used to be. But now and then the equivalent of a hundred-year storm still came raging down as it did now on her emotional landscape with little warning. Not a storm like Dorothy Gale’s, mercifully sending her into a technicolor bliss while her psyche recuperated but a storm in which she huddled, all too conscious, in the interior corners of her mind frantically and vainly scrabbling at the walls for an escape while the winds of depression pounded like fists against the shuddering window frames of her mind . The gusts strained the posts of her foundation until they screeched and splintered.

That emotional wind, whipping, now unhinged the connecting points. Less and less of her central edifice held. More and more fragments were flying off in the fray. Thoughts were lost. Chaos descended. Distraction. Mind static, jolting, popped. Popped into place. Pierced out of again. Jagged frightened twitching junkie’s paranoia. Raw nerve ends. Tweaking. Shattered. Frayed. Screaming. A siren's rasping scrape. Pealing carrion cries. Splitting. Sharp-pointed slivers. Frayed frizzled fibers and filaments. Rending wood. Pieces. Tiny pieces. Quivering.

Quivering.

Shattered.

Worn. Worn out.

And now, here again, weeks or months later, is the damage left behind. She retieves pieces, putting them back on the shelf. Remnants, old habits, scraps of familiar joy, all of these things the mortar shoring up her walls. She awaits the friends cautiously checking to see if it is safe to return, watching for sharp edges.