not like a headache. not like pain. just this constant need to check. like something had been placed inside me without permission and i needed to confirm it was still contained.
it started in 8th grade biology.
our teacher was talking about the brain like it was just another object. like chalk. like a desk. like something distant. and then he said the pia mater was the outermost layer of the brain.
outermost. tender mother.
i remember staring at the diagram and feeling sick in a very quiet way. not nausea. just this slow, creeping awareness that there was something soft inside my skull and that the only thing separating it from my fingers was a series of biological decisions i did not make.
i went home and lay on my bed and pushed my fingers into my scalp.
not hard. just enough to feel the shape of the barrier.
i kept imagining it giving in. not breaking. just giving in. like pushing your finger into fruit. like the resistance wasn’t permanent, just socially reinforced.
a week later, he corrected himself.
he said pia mater was actually the innermost layer. he had gotten it wrong.
but it didn’t fix anything.
because the problem wasn’t where the layer was.
the problem was that there was something in there at all.
that there was an object inside me generating every thought i had ever had. something physical. something soft. something that could be touched if the distance collapsed.
i started running my fingers through my hair constantly after that.
and being honest, i still do.
especially when i’m thinking too hard. especially when i become aware of myself existing. my fingers just move there automatically, like they’re checking the lid of a container. like they expect to find a seam.
sometimes i press a little harder just to feel the resistance push back.
sometimes i imagine it not pushing back.
sometimes i imagine my fingers sliding through, parting everything cleanly, reaching the source of it all. the wet electric center. the thing that has been pretending to be me since i was born.
not to hurt it.
just to see it.
just to know if it recognizes me back.
because that’s the worst part. the separation.
my brain has never seen me.
i have never seen it.
and yet we are trapped together. it speaks and i call it my voice. it reacts and i call it my feelings. it remembers and i call it my past.
but it could stop.
it could change.
it could become something else entirely and take me with it.
and no one would know the difference from the outside.
sometimes when i’m alone, i run my fingers through my hair over and over and over until it feels less like a habit and more like a failed attempt.
like i am trying to reach something that is inches away but permanently inaccessible.
like i am checking for an exit that isn’t there.
like if i just tried one more time, harder this time, slower this time, more carefully, i could finally touch the thing that is touching everything for me.
but the skull holds.
it always holds.
and i don’t know if that makes me safer or just more trapped.