How do I explain this?

I am running on battery power.

Occassionally, when I am with other people (never when I am alone) the man in the controls room plugs me into the mains, and I dance inside. Talk nine to the dozen, come across as funny and interesting and deep, flick my hair at the appropriate moment, laugh at the right jokes. Whilst I’m connected to the mains, I’m overly aware of someone hanging over my shoulders. Sitting behind a bush in the front garden with binoculars.

It is me subconsciously making a note of every move I make, logging it for future over-analysing. So I can lie in bed and take a toothpick to an innocent sentence, turn the flashlight onto myself and ask WHY didyousaythat? Are you comPLETELY crazy or just a little bit? Wait for an answer which never comes from my cringing self, wincing under almost flourescent lighting, aimed with pristine precision at my retinas.

It is the man in the controls room.

The controls man watches me leave Thom’s house, watches me leave Beth and Steph after lunch at Bellinini’s, watches me say goodnight to my parents. Hangs around until the only person online is a guy I vaguely know and despise half-heartedly. Waits for that moment when it’s just me and my very loud thoughts, and then pulls the plug with a glazed look and a little cackle which he lets trail off into oblivion after three seconds, because he really doesn’t care enough to waste precious energy on a full-scale anti-hero guffaw. Mwuhaha……

And I’m back on battery power again.

I feel a deep affinity with the grimy white bathroom radio. It has rechargable batteries, but nobody thinks to charge them up. Flick the switch, radio comes on. Loud, and for a split second I think hang on, it works. Five seconds it takes for it to die completely.

My batteries are always on the brink of cutting out, with a kind whoooompf like a computer in a power cut.

Is this what they call run down? Stressed? Depressed? In love? Is it from not eating enough? Exercising too much? Is it that essay, tension-set at the back of my mind? Those old squishy carrots I ate (only because I assumed they were from the VeggieBox, which justifies squishiness because ALL ORGANIC FOOD IS SQUISHY. They turned out to be from Sainsburys.)?

OR WHAT?