if only a sigh were loud enough

My muscles pinch and crawl like intolerable little spiders up and down my back, up the length of my neck, around my middle.  I balance in between grabbing for the swimmy-head, stomach tickling anxiety pills and screaming and swinging and unbinding any sense of composure I have ever held myself together with.  

I don't understand why there are times when each single task erupts into odyssey after odyssey.  It's god-damn over-the-phone bill paying.  It is MADE to provide a convenient service!  Charge me ONCE, not twice OR not at all!  It's tracking down the apparently out-of-print book for 19th century lit. that LITERALLY is only housed at the smallest, out-of-the-way-est library known to mankind, and it only took 10 phone calls and an absurd conversation with the 85-year old uninformed campus librarian who could NOT explain to me why the online catalog listed the fucking book as both "available" and "checked-out" before I could lay my twitching, exhausted hands on its cover.  And it's the bionic fleas that refuse to surrender the sweet, tender flesh of my poor, suffering dog, and the vet money I don't have and every cure I've tried [as best as I could].

I meant to tackle backed-up homework, though the universe clearly had other plans.  I spent the day unpuzzling an unexpected Rubiks Tuesday.  A couple of times I considered erasing my notion of maps and to-do's and driving aimlessly forever, but I settled on cooking my woes into oblivion.  I checked-out the book, had treated the dog with prescriptions and unearthed an intricate grocery list from the bowels of my purse.  I wandered until I found myself parked in a grand Kroger lot.  With eco-friendly shopping bags and wallet in hand, I entered the automatic gates of Salvation.  Ripe palettes of produce, chirping lasers kissing barcodes, panes of frozen aisles, warm yeasty shelves of bread; I love this pocket of life better than the hilarity of the world at large.  With my blue bag brimming full of dairies and veggies and tubes of dough, I caught myself before making my way to the finish-line cash register.  Hard cider and less of a white-knuckled grip on each angry minute beyond the thick walls of food would feel nice.  Finished, I went to pay.

This is where I picked up [yesterday].  And rising today, full on sleep and drawn by sunshine I started collecting myself, directing myself, finding my Wednesday purpose.  All was well and free of anxious, crawling muscles until I dumped out my purse for re-organizing.  No wallet.  Of fucking course: no wallet.  Because how could a day be whole without the blinding frustration of something amiss!?  And again I want to drive away, uncoil my mind with a pill, fire up the oven or uncork a thick, glass bottle of freedom.  

It's still at Kroger, holding my place in the land of salvation, only I'm miles and miles away, stuck in the here and now.