There Is an Invisible Cord Around My Heart

Tightening

Some mornings, I wake up already caught. The cord is there, pressing. Not like a noose, not quite. But more like someone pulling gently on a thread behind my ribs. A tension without hands. A breath I forgot to take. I sit on the edge of the bed, motionless, watching the light change on the floor. Like maybe if I stay still enough, the world won’t notice I’ve cracked.

My chest feels full and hollow at the same time. Like a bell that rings inward. Like a room where someone just left.

There’s no name for this.

No diagnosis I’ve found captures the texture of it. The grain. The weightless weight. And no one can see it, which makes it worse. They see the smile. The posture. The coffee in my hand. They don’t see the rope that keeps tugging, tighter each hour.

Dissonance

I move through the day like someone walking underwater. Everything is too loud and too far away. I hear voices, but not the words. My name sounds foreign. The sun is too bright. Or maybe not bright enough.

I watch people laughing. They look like a language I used to speak.

Sometimes I touch my chest just to check if it’s really there—this invisible thread wrapped around me. It's not physical, not exactly. But it leaves bruises anyway. Small ones. On the inside.

The tension builds with no release. I long for a scream, but it won’t come. Only silence. The kind that buzzes.

Breach

Panic arrives like a whisper first. Like a draft through a closed window. Then it swells. The cord pulls hard, like it’s trying to lift me out of myself.

I forget how to breathe. I forget what day it is. I forget how to speak without shaking. I become a locked box inside a moving body.

I wish someone could see it. Not just the symptoms. Not the stammer or the flinch. But the whole thing: the rope, the drag, the dark echo inside every action.

I try to hold on to something solid. A sentence. A handrail. A face. But everything shifts. And I slip again.

Camouflage

You’d be amazed at how normal I can look.

I say “I’m fine” with a practiced smile. I make jokes. I do the dishes. I send emails. I carry conversations. No one suspects that inside, I’m unraveling.

It’s an art, really. A choreography. Smile here. Blink here. Nod at the right time. But beneath it, I’m knotted. I want to lay down in the middle of the floor and let the world move around me.

Instead, I make a list. Lists feel like control. Tasks are better than thoughts.

Sometimes I add “breathe” just to check it off.

Quiet Places

There are tiny refuges. I’ve made them.

A soft corner by the window. A playlist that sounds like water. A sweater that smells like someone I miss. Small things, built from memory and routine. Like nests for the days I forget how to exist.

When the cord loosens, I feel like I’m floating. I don’t trust it. Freedom feels suspicious. Like it might be a trap. I hold my breath and wait for the pull to return.

It always does.

Trace

There is no cure, only witnessing. I’ve learned to trace the cord back in quiet moments. It begins somewhere deep. Maybe childhood. Maybe before.

Sometimes I imagine cutting it. But I fear what would happen. Who would I be, without this tightness? What if it’s holding me together?

So I leave it.

I live around it.

I write to mark the path of it. I speak softly, like someone trying not to scare away a bird. I walk gently. I try not to tug.

Because the cord is part of me now. And some days, it sings.