Daisy

Saturday Scribe May 2, 2025, Mi Tea

Sketch created by Shayna Brewer

Rumination is my achilles heel. Fueled by my anxiety and compulsion tendencies, I get sucked into an endless pit of recurring thoughts I fight tooth and nail to destroy. It’s like being stuck on a mobius strip of consciousness. As hard as I try to get to the other side, the side that will give me peace, the more I realize it is an impossible feat. The other side does not exist, it is an illusion, and I’m stuck on the twisted strip of intrusive thoughts I continuously struggle to escape.

I tell myself, just think of something else. How many birds from your backyard can you name? Cardinal, brown-headed cowbird, house finch, house sparrow, blue jay.

Name your favorite flowers. Peonies, sunset lantanas, hibiscus…daisies.

It’s always the thought or sight of daisies. Suddenly my body becomes heavy and begs to melt into every crack and crevice in the ground. The pollen in the flower’s center de-saturates and becomes monochromatic, as my once clear mind clouds and separates from my body. The world’s colors slowly seep away as I hover above myself.

I try to ground my soul by running my hands through blades of grass in my backyard, but they might as well be clouds, detached from my fingers as my mind drifts further away from my vessel.

I try to smell the air, but nothing registers, even as my garden, filled with fragrant herbs and flowers, dances in the wind in full bloom.

The maladaptive daydreaming swirls visions before my eyes of what could have, and should have been. I’m no longer in this dimension, but another, fixated on the greatest loss I’ve ever endured. I hover above, a sentinel, a quiet observer, watching her grow and play with the dogs, with Nick, smelling flowers and picking herbs.

My corgi Jpeg barks for attention and shatters the rumination and dissociative state. I find myself curled on my couch, under my yellow blanket, cheeks damp with salt. I look at the clock and realize an hour has passed and walk through quicksand back to my home office. I log into zoom, put on a smile, and get back to work.

This piece was written in response to the Saturday Scribe prompt below:

Write about a moment when you wondered if you were broken - or simply buried. What was pushing you down? What tried to grow anyway?