Walking into that room always makes me feel as if I’ve gained 100 lbs. My shirt becomes too tight on my belly, my thighs swell to become long balloons made by some clown, and my shoulders hunch inwards so I can hide myself from people’s stares. I pull my sleeves over my hands--my number-one giveaway that I’m feeling insecure. My hands are already sweating and shaking, and I clench my jaw to keep myself from crying. My face turns from resting b**** to one that conveys neglect and shame and fear simultaneously.
The other people around me laugh and joke, for they have tamed the beast that waits for me behind the closed door. I don’t understand how they could and not I; for surely we weren’t that different, they and I? But they have grown as tall and slim as willowy trees, supreme in their ability to leave this h--- in which I reside, as I continue to try and shrink into myself, while I grow larger every minute, my hands wetting my sleeves with their physical appearance of pain, the headache grows behind my eyes.
My stomach pooches over my belt as I curl up in the room to keep myself together. The woman who won’t stop, never stops talking tells us what trials lay in store for today. I groan because every word out of her mouth is a punch in my swollen heart, a kick in the head that I can’t escape from, can never escape from.
My head becomes too heavy, just like the rest of my body. I catch myself slipping and resting it, just a bit, but the woman snaps at me. “Pay attention,” she says, “Pay attention to what I’m going to make you do.”
Strange symbols fill my vision; it’s like I’ve fallen into a city in Greece, maybe Russia, and I have to claw my way out without knowing a word of the language. On the worst days, it’s North Korea. The people surrounding me know how to speak this tongue; they mock me because I cannot.
My eyes, blinded by the twitching pain beneath them, like a heart taken out of a body, start to close. My mouth dries and begins to taste bitter, for this is only the beginning of today’s work. I can feel the life leave them. This feels like my end.
By the end of the day my eyes are marbles, glassy with tears, but without feeling left in them at all. Only the red spots underneath them serve as reminders of what I’ve been made to do.
Walking out of the room is inhaling helium. A faked buoyancy that only buys me a few hours of time before I must complete my tasks again.