Free I Don't Want to Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz Page B

to pay attention.
Every moment
I must be on guard.
    The coast of Italy blends back into France.
There is nothing but sky and water
and each is changing shades
of the same color.
    This was supposed to be
one of the best times of my life
but it has been a nightmare
that only pills can stop.
    I cannot explain how significant it is
to be tracing the outline of the coast.
I like this feeling
of being on the edge of something so big.
    There is so much that I am supposed to be saying,
so much that I am supposed to be doing,
but instead I am sitting here picking
at my wounds, bringing up blood,
and looking behind my nails
to see what I have scraped up.
    From the coast, everything gets put into perspective.
Going past thousands of homes I get smaller.
Looking at a sea that never seems to end
makes me disappear too,
but in the middle of all this
there is a small island
with a wooded mountain
with a house at the top.
    Looking at myself
in a fragmented mirror in the bathroom
of the Hole in the Wall bar in Vieux Nice.
An eye here,
lips there,
all misplaced and disjointed,
all make sense.
    Two days with Xanax.
Two days without attacks.
Maybe this is the best way—
twice a day,
little white pills for calm and quiet,
for sense of a composed face
in a broken mirror.

v.
    We are on the overnight train to Barcelona
and I am nervous that Rebecca and I don’t speak Spanish
and we aren’t sure where to get off the train.
Early in the morning, before dawn,
we switch trains at Port Bou.
I see a group of young American guys
and figure one of them knows where to go.
We talk to them for the rest of the ride
and when we get off
they insist that we all stay at the same hostel.
    When we get there
there is only one room left
with beds for five people.
We are stuck with them
because I wasn’t confident
that we could manage on our own.
    Rebecca and I spend the day
at Park Güell, designed by Gaudí.
All the structures rise up from the earth
like someone watered them and they grew.
I know this is the most beautiful place I have ever been,
but I cannot enjoy it.
    That night the guys and Rebecca and I
are supposed to be going clubbing near Las Ramblas,
but as it gets later and we start to get ready,
I can’t decide
if it would be worse to stay behind
with no one to talk to,
or to go, fearing I will have a panic attack.
But mostly all I can think about is Rebecca
and how I am ruining her spring break.
    Even though I don’t want to be alone,
it would be worse
to make Rebecca stay with me.
I insist that she go with them and have fun.
I have a book,
a CD player,
and a new box of Xanax
that I talked a pharmacist into giving me.
    It is hard being alone,
sitting on the balcony
and watching the people below
being normal
and having fun.
    I try to take a hot shower, to relax,
but the bathroom is filthy
and the water won’t stay hot long enough
to enjoy it.
I must remember
all bad nights come to an end.
The pain eventually goes away.
I have cried more in the last two days
than I have in the last year.
The attacks keep coming,
and it hurts worse than anything else
that I can’t stop them.
    I take a Xanax,
get into bed,
hair still wet,
and cry until I fall asleep.
    It’s dark when I wake up
and they are back.
The guys are joking around,
being drunk,
trying to get me to get up,
but it’s the middle of the night
and I was finally somewhere
that wasn’t terrible.
    One of the guys starts jumping on my bed
and another opens a can of beer
and it sprays all over me.
I feel like I am with a bunch of children.
All I want to do is sleep
and be left alone
and the only thing I can do
is scream and curse at them.
    I realize that it has to be done.
I have to leave Barcelona,
go back farther than Paris or New York.
I tried to tell myself that it was going to be okay,
but it is not.
Even with the pills,
the terror still comes.
    I don’t think I look like myself anymore.
I feel like I tried to ignore too much
and now I am here shaking
in some strange city.
    I don’t feel