Pollen {warning: graphic}

Are you allergic to pollen? Because I think it might be the worst part about humanity.

It feels like there are a thousand fleas crawling inside my nose and sinuses. Every blink feels like my eyes are rimmed with sand:  a burning sensation crawls across my pupils and tears come in emotionless waves. My nose whistles and rattles, stuffed with crusty debris that will neither clear up nor be blown out, while liquid misery simultaneously pours out, signaling my eyes to water further.

I sneeze. Once, twice, three times, four... The force of the action wracks my body, sending stinging stabs of overwhelming fury and frustration. My throat reacts with weak tingles of protest. A coughing fit seizes for a moment.

My eyes water.

I try to keep them open, both because I need them dry and because I need to do Milton research. I have a 14-16 page paper due in T-minus four days. This professor expects more of me than any I've ever had before. A gentle pounding has begun in the back left corner of my head.

But despite the danger of watering, my eyes scream with the desire to shut.  I can't tell if it's the effects of the ineffective 24-hour Zyrtec I took twelve hours ago, or the lack of good sleep since probably last Monday night.

Last night was the worst. Hot and tangled, the sheets clinging and twisted, ripping me from sleep so my throat could harass me with elusive tickles. Nose crusted over, limbs throbbing from within, mind plagued with near-feverish notions of homework and relationships and moving back home.

Subconscious stress clawed its way to the surface of my mind, refusing to take form for fear of being recognized and properly defeated. Impressionistic swirls of urgency dug into my heart, joining my blood as it circulated around my body to my brain.

Sleep fled, but so did wakefulness, and I tossed and turned with hellish clenches of teeth and grippings of fists.

My alarm went off at 8:45, and though exhausted, I was relieved to be free of the obligation to try to sleep.

I smeared ChapStick over the cracked and bleeding surfaces of my lips. Mouth breathing all night.

Another day. Another day of pollen.

Exams start in three days. I'm not sure how to study when all I can think is "Pollen must be Satan's vomit."

Hope you're doing well :3

~Stephanie