Tonight is the worst night of my recent life. I am now in hour four of a huge panic attack. I can barely breathe, I cannot sit still, I cannot think straight, I've been driving all over town burning gallons and gallons of fuel, visiting bars where I might know somebody or something. I don't know why I'm this way today, only that I am and I can't stand it. It's made worse by the fact that I feel utterly and totally alone at this moment and even though I have called and visited the houses of all three of my true friends in town, no one's home, no one's answering their phones, no one's returning messages left for them. It's one of those nights where you need to talk, need to feel loved, need to cry on someone's shoulder and absolutely no one is there. No one. I'm not blaming them, not at all, I can't go believing that their lives should revolve around me or anything like that, but it still sucks that there's no one that can lend me an ear right now, ya know?

Well, I'm off to the bar again. I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song that is playing on the soundtrack of my life tonight...

The Bends
by Radiohead

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird
Where are you now, when I need you
Alone on an aeroplane
Fall asleep on against the window pane
My blood will thicken

I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain
'Cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath
But who are my real friends?
Have they all got the bends?
Am I really sinking this low?

My baby's got the bends, oh no
We don't have any real friends, no, no, no

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on
Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

Where do we go from here?
The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear
And where are you?
They brought in the CIA, the tanks and the whole marines
To blow me away, to blow me sky high

My baby's got the bends
We don't have any real friends

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on
Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

I wanna live, breathe
I wanna be part of the human race
I wanna live, breathe
I wanna be part of the human race, race, race, race

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird
Where are you now when I need you?

>>three hour later addition edit<<

I went to the bar, ran into people I knew but none that I consider a "friend" in the truest sense of the word -- it didn't help. No one understands my problems, no one really wants to listen to them, no one wants to help me. I can list everything that overburdens my heart -- war, the kids, love, finances, injustice, inequity, God, Mom, art, purpose, hope, etc. -- but no one understands. They say "Kyle, you look like something's wrong" and I might try to explain, but they don't care, they just give me a puzzled look and turn away. "What's a panic attack?" they might ask, and I don't care to explain. "What triggered it?" they ask, and I can't say what..."that's what sucks about panic attacks" I reply and they say "oh" or some other nonsense and stay away from me the rest of the night. No one understands. No one. But I'm still in the midst of it, it started seven hours ago and though the talk of politics numbed it for a bit, or at least distracted me, I still half-thought of trying to visit or call a friend. But that's selfish I thought, that's rude. And so I came home and am now writing here on my blog.

I want soma, I want relief, I want to go away from this place that I'm at and never come back. I want to feel like I belong to something, some place, or someone. I want to feel like there's meaning, like there's purpose to my life, like there's nothing wrong in this world or in my life. I want to belong. I want to look out onto the world and see that everything is fine and that there's nothing to worry about. I want to be numb. I want to be happy. I want soma.

Soma, Soma, Soma. I don't know what that means, I talked about it tonight, but I don't know what it means. I just wish that I lived in a vacuum, a bloody vacuum where there were no outside influences to distract me from myself. A place where I could be me without feeling I have to explain myself or be anything that I'm not. A place where nothing hurts me unless I hurt myself which I wouldn't do because, frankly, I have no reason to hurt myself. I don't feel that way. But the rest of the world hurts and I can't help but feel that hurt myself. Man it sucks to have a conscience, but soma would take care of that, so maybe if I repeat it over and over and over again, I can have pleasant dreams of numbness.

Soma, Soma, Soma, Soma, Soma...Soma...Soma...So...Ma...SssssssOooooo...zzzzzz