October 18, 2022 - Elizabeth Lerman’s “The Strongest Wind There’s Ever Been”

On the days I don’t feel real, I float instead of walk. It is not a flying sort of float but one that drags me along slowly, like we are going against the strongest wind there’s ever been, and it feels the same when I sleep, so on days that move like they are not meant to be moving, I have to find the things that don’t exist in my dreams, have to look around and see the city standing still, not swaying like it does sometimes, some nights, and even then, when nothing is crumbling beneath my feet, when the world is not falling flat around me, I need to look down, to see myself standing on a sidewalk that is not sucking me in like quicksand and I do this often but quietly, so that no one else will notice me wondering if I am awake.