The Sunday Scaries

Possible Series: Almost Nothings

**Don't worry, I am done writing for tonight. **

The Sunday Scaries:

It starts around dusk.

Not all at once,
more like a slow tightening,
a whisper in the muscle,
a shift in the air.

The sun still hangs low and soft,
but something inside me
has already started
packing up the weekend.

The body sinks into the couch,
blanket pulled tight,
show playing,
but I’m not watching.

The list has arrived.
Uninvited,
insistent.

The emails I will find in the morning,
stacked like tiny debts,
the grocery list that won’t wait past Wednesday,
the meeting that will demand more
than I will have to give,
the permission slip I’ll need to remember,
the side project,
the side of the side project.

Will I move the laundry to the dryer?
Will I remember to RSVP by Tuesday?
When will I fit in the call to Dad,
the work meeting,
the thing I said I’d start
but haven’t touched?

I grab my phone,
half to distract,
half to numb,
and within minutes I’m drowning,
a friend’s promotion,
a news headline,
a product I should try,
a post that reminds me
I haven’t followed up,
haven’t checked in,
haven’t become
what I keep saying
I’m becoming.

I put the phone down,
pick up the remote,
try again.

But the show’s just background noise
for the tantrum inside my chest,
the pulse behind my ribs,
the invisible weight
of a life
too full,
too fast,
too loud.

The Sunday scaries aren’t just dread,
they’re the shallow-breath panic
of everything rushing in,
the tension in your shoulders
as softness slips away,
the squeeze of knowing
you will never get ahead,
only through.

They are the low hum of pressure,
the countdown you can’t silence,
the collapse of wishing
you knew how to pause
without falling behind.

They sit beside me on the couch,
their hand on my shoulder,
pressing down,
while inside,
my brain spins like a carousel of tabs,
none of them closing,
all of them loud.

Reminding me
that the clock is a god
and Monday is its altar.