by Tess McInnis
And in her feline smile said “okay, good...it's a start. It's a good start.”
LOSE CONTROL by Evanescence
My feet want to walk. Pacing around in circles, I am wishing for a cigarette. I hold my arms in hug to myself and find comfort of the cold tile on the soles of my feet. I am waiting. I do not know for what. I know I am not waiting for sleep. It has occurred to me if I fall asleep I could be taken by demons. If I stay awake, I can see them coming. In a moment, the room seems so large, and in the next it is so small I can't breathe. I sit on the edge of the bed and wait. No one comes. Not the ants, the feline doctor, or the demons. I must stay awake. I pace the room some more. Playing games in my head with the tiles on the floor in a hopscotch way. I tell myself stories of fairy tales, surprising myself of my ability to even do so. I hear laughing and run to the door. With my ear against it, I listen for the laughter, not accepting that it as my own. I am pacing. I am waiting. I see shadows yet when I turn they have disappeared. I am raking at my brain for pleasurable things. And I am pacing. I sit on the toilet in the tiny bathroom. Looking down, I see faces in the tiles of the floor looking back at me. I lean closer to give them names. I wonder if they are the demons sent to take me. Frightened, I run to my bed and pull the sheets off and return to the bathroom. Neatly I spread the sheets on the floor and cover the faces. I tell them “I am not going to sleep”. They don't answer. I leave the bathroom quickly, my heart pounding. I tell myself not to return to that room. I lean against the wall. I begin to roll myself around the room staying in line with the wall. I roll myself to the edge of the bed feeling it as an obstacle for a moment, but then I just roll around it, still moving. I stop when I come to the door. I cautiously rise a bit to peek out the small window. No ants, no demons. My body is tired. But I will stay awake. I will not let the flashlight get me.
“I don't want to be sedated!” I scream at ants trying to pin me down. “GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME” I kick an ant in the stomach and set to tackle the one who owns my arms. “BITCH, get away from me” I yell clawing my fingernails into the fat ant's arm. She is holding my wrist like one more squeeze would snap it in two. I try to reach her skin in a bite and the other ant is needle in hand down on me. “YOU ARE NOT TOUCHING ME WITH THAT FUCKING THING” and I try to kick her again, both feet pedaling hard at her.
“What is going on in here?” a voice I recognize yells.
“She hasn't slept for three days...she's combative, she's...” the ant barks still wrestling with me.
“Stop now...stop all this now” feline doctor commands to the ants. And I am thankful. I am tired, but thankful.
The ants fall back and the feline approaches me.
“You can go, everything will be okay” she says as she motions the ants out. The ants are not sure. Her gestures mean business though and they leave.
“You haven't slept huh?” she quips, checking me over for marks from the ants.
“I'm not tired”
“Three days awake and your not tired? I would be exhausted, probably fall over right here” she smile's. I manage a smile back, a tried one at best. I am weary and cautious. Everything is running away from me. I manage to peek at my legs, pale with red marks from ants griping their hold. Feline doctor is looking at them too.
And she says “ Well, that wasn't very nice of them was it?” she rubs my leg. “Why aren't you sleeping?”
“The demons might come for me again” I say with convinced tone.
“Did you know we have someone posted outside your door at all times?” she kindly responds and notions towards the Grey door.
“How do you know it's not him?”I flash back hurried in my words.
“Him?”
“You know, the one in the blue scrubs” and out of nowhere from the empty room of my mind comes their first lead on who may be responsible for my horror show. Feline doctor quickly writes it down and continues with this conversation to my shell.
“Were the scrubs large or small?”
“Large, very large and they had large teeth” I am seeing teeth, Cheshire cat teeth. Teeth on my back. Teeth from ear to ear on a face. The face I cannot see, because there are too many teeth.
“Teeth huh...hmm” She answers, but I can tell she is thinking hard about this, more than I am. She pauses for a minute, rubs her hand across her chin repeatedly and looks like she is in a trance staring at the floor. She scribbles some more on her paper. And changes the subject after watching me watch the door. “I want to give you something to relax, to just calm you.”
“Will I fall asleep?”
“No, it's just for your nerves”
She lied.
Windows. Like walls. But windows. Suspended in air in a glass box. Staring out to the world. I hold coffee in my hand and stare. Glass is cruel. I can see out, but cannot get through. Ohhh the world looks so inviting and I must free myself from the glass. I want to, I can't. The glass wants me to only watch as the world lives. I float to each side of the box to only discover more of what I can't have. I see people laughing, hugging and skipping on glorious paths they have sown for themselves. They are so loved. Yellow beams follow each soul as they run. I am jealous. I am sad. I am a thousand wrong turns caught in a glass case. I am still holding the coffee cup, it is glued to my hand. I try to shake it loose but to no avail. I manage to will it from my hand to the glass bottom floor and it falls. I look at my hand and it is there again. A reminder of how I twirled my life thoughts each morning in the reflection of a dark brewing, yet the brewing was inside me. Always. And now I am encased, suspended from life because I never knew how to live right, how to live at all. I watch my body suddenly go through the life process. My legs are chubby and I am small...my legs are growing and I am developing....my form is complete and I start to age...age. Fast. In seconds, I have gone from child to old woman. Still, holding the cup. I feebly take old woman steps to another wall of glass. I feel my face and it is leather. And in a glance below is now nothingness. I can no longer even watch the world.
I'M IN HERE by Sia
I sit up and bring my knees to my chest. I am purging against the dream, letting rivers of fear flow out of me in silence. I want for no one to hear me or see me. This is my holding moment of life, of actualization in which I care. I do not will for the world or anyone to know life matters. Even if I do not matter. I cry for each and every day of my life, knowing my selfishness in refusal to be a part of. I have let all things consume me for whatever reason and I do not understand why. Why my head has never been right. Why my heart has little capacity to hold love long. Why my body won't do life. I have isolated myself from living because it has become the way. I cry for my ambivalence in everything I do. Tears for my children. For every breathe I have taken wrong. For all this hate so extreme it has carved lines in my face. For longing of love which whispers my name and then dissipates laughing. I sit with head down, thinking hard about all the complexities of being human. And I wonder how to push through the past. Thoughts are like another entity inside me, ruling me, judging me and controlling every single move I make, like a prison guard. I am inside my own prison. I cannot get back home. Home is elusive, unreal.
The door opens slowly with a head peeking in for welcoming. I look to see Doctor gentle asking if he can come in. I am confused, but too sad to acknowledge. He is wearing his white doctor's coat as usual. The unease I feel is stirring undefined. Something is wrong here. He quietly closes the door and creeps over to my bedside. I am unmoved externally, but a gnawing is growing in my belly. I am already trapped by my own undoing from screaming dreams and now I must contend with another. With him. My Doctor gentle who also has thoughts imprisoned. “Hi...” he says quietly, as not to wake me from myself. “How are you doing?” Again with the whisper talk. “I just wanted to peek in on you and see how you were coming along” more whispers. I am clinging to a question I cannot answer for myself, but surely I will answer it...and soon. I nod to him as if this was the right thing to do. I have no words for him in
this moment. He stands and stares with compassion I have previously accepted from him in the past. I begin to search my gnawing with my eyes taking note he is not of blue scrubs. I follow him with my eyes as he sits down in a chair he has pulled close to me. It is then I notice the bandage wrappings around his ankles. I gasp, hand over mouth and eyes wide. Clarity hits me hard. I had stabbed Doctor gentle. “Oh my god...it WAS you...” I say repeatedly and he gets up hurrying over to me.
“It's not what you think...I'm not who you think...”he says trying to explain all in a second before I freak my head again. “No, no, no, I am not the one who...” he is quickly trying to calm me and I am getting sick to my stomach. Seconds caught in a whirlwind of explanations, emotions and panic. His hands are palm out as he is approaching me. I am back against the wall and I have no where to go.
“Please understand it wasn't me...I would never do that to you...ever” I am yelling at him, but no clue as to what I am saying. I am weak and vulnerable. His words getting collided with mine. His fear marrying mine. Minimal understanding is happening. I begin to kick at him, and he is trying to restrain me,still defending his position. I claw his face hard with my right hand and he retreats leaving me to kick the air. “DAMMIT, I DIDN'T DO IT!” he says wiping at the blood on his face. “How could I? How could I...” his frustration elevated to irrational behavior not resembling a doctor, but a man. I am begging him to leave my room, concentrated crying born from remembering that night. I remember it all now...the feet, the pen, the flashlight...it's all in my head and I know.
“Please you have to believe me, I didn't do it...I couldn't have” he is insistence of my response.
“IT HAD TO BE YOU! I see the bandages, I see where I stabbed you...”I yell, but I am looking for a weapon.
“I was coming to check in on you that night. If only I had been minutes sooner...I am sorry” and there are tears in his eyes. “I didn't want something like this to ever happen to you...I couldn't protect you, but I wanted too...it's been my whole mission...don't you see that...I have been trying to save you, not hurt you...please understand what I am telling you, please....” he is sobbing and collecting himself, intermittent of wiping blood. I am confused, thinking why the hell is this doctor crying over me. More, what is saying, trying to save me? I say nothing for the time being. Frozen. I watch as he attempts gestures at composure, he is leaving.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?” he answers.
“why are you trying to save me?” I stare at the bed, not one muscle in me moving. I am mad, cynical about this whole scene. Maybe he didn't do that the other night or whenever that happened. How could I be sure about anything in my head, nothing is real anyways. I don't even look at him, yet I can see him standing there at the door, hand on the door, readying to leave and he is angry too.
“I asked you why are you trying to save me?” I whisper again.
“Because...God dammit...I AM YOUR BROTHER” and he is gone. NOBODY KNOWS by Pink I want to run. Run. I want to leave here now. Something has come unwarranted and shred my whole world view into a meaning. My life or lack of is tossed a bone and I don't want it. I want to run. Now. I think what day is it...cannot remember. Counting in my head begins as I try to bring the day up. I can't. It could be Friday or it could be Monday. There are no sure shots for days in here. I don't even know how long I have been here, only why. Time to run. Run from the inevitable course of accepting another truth. I walk to the window and look out with familiarity of this routine. And with that, I remember it is Sunday. Glorious Sunday. Lil Mex will be here tonight. I try to think about the time with no luck. I question myself as if I even got the day right. I feel my heart beating fast sending fast thoughts to my brain. I am hamster wheeling in my head. Ruminating. Planning. My defensive wounds are deep. I am emotionally on notice to fight or flight. I choose flight. Get the hell away from this shit. Back to the the forest of insignificance and invisibility. I ritually lay my shoes under the one chair in my room. My cig's tucked inside, I am ready. I pace until I hear lil' Mex rapping awfully outside my door.
“hey mamacita, what's going on?” he cheerfully falls in like a friend. He obviously has no knowledge of my red incident. Better that way.
“Wow, your pupils are huge...your eyes are so wide, what's up with that” he says in a freaked out way.
“It is from all the med's their asses have been giving me” I suppose that is a half truth.
“Holy, you look blazed” he continues his conversation with a recollection of some good weed on his day off and how hungry it had made him.
I needed to go.
“Is my door being guarded?” I asked him quickly as to not rise suspicion.
“I didn't see anyone out there gurl, was there suppose to be?” He has no clue to what is going on and that is good.
“Hey, you wanna clear out the back for a quick smoke?” I asked nudging him towards a yes answer.
He didn't notice my shoes were on, which was pretty normal for lil' Mex, a happy soul who just skipped happily through his life not minding details. It must be the reason he could work in a place like this. He was just aloof to all the sickness and unhappiness going on. Maybe he was on autopilot, but somehow I doubted that. Autopilot was for people who conformed to all of life in such a way that the only way to function was by an unshakable routine. Lil' Mex was still young and not subject to the later years autopilot. We continued walking through the darkened kitchen and he unlocked the door. I was trying to decide if I would have one last smoke with him for shits and grins, or if I should just run. I knew what I had to do, but wasn't looking forward to hurting him. True to my nature, I destroy everything I touch. I liked lil' Mex, had mad respect for him, still, I had to hurt him. And that sucked. So, I decided we would smoke first, so I could assess the environment around me. All in my head, I kept hearing Doctor gentle's confession. Over and over his voice squeezing in a pocket of my brain demanding acknowledgment and acceptance of those words “I am your brother”. What the fuck was that anyways, who comes up into your life like a freaking soap opera moment and confesses something so bizarre? Like a fuckin star wars movie... “Luke, I am your father”. What was that? My head was shriveling away from any reality of words given to me to understand. I was stuck between cigarettes, wet flashlights, and I am your brother. Lil' Mex was leaning on a gross garbage dumpster, smiling, smoking and talking about his latest squeeze. I was seeing him do this, but a different movie was playing out behind my eyes. How would I leave this place? I was looking around. Three cement steps up to a green yard with a parallel driveway of asphalt for the deliveries made here. Further on was surprisingly a normal chain fence with a higher rise, but the delivery gates were not locked. They just required a clip and a slide by these hands, and I was home free. So different then prison. I used to walk around and look for escape routes for 'just in case'. I always needed a way out. In prison, I found two. One through the back door of the kitchen, kind of like here. Then there was one right above my bed out in the 'dog pod', where the girls were put to pretend to train service dogs. The merit system got me in there, my mouth got me out back onto A pod. But right above my bed, I could have climbed to a pipe which led to an air conditioning unit which was movable by a few bolts. From there, I could have easily climbed onto the roof and jumped down into an alley where no high wire fences existed. I was surprised nobody else had thought of it or attempted escape from the power controlled swelling cage. Now in hindsight, I think we were the service dogs.
It was time.
I hated this moment.
I hated having to put lil' Mex in a choke hold and take him down. There had to be another way. Something else...a distraction perhaps.
“Hey, you know what, I am kinda hungry...aren't you?” The power of suggestion.
“Shittt, I am always hungry girl...” The response I wanted. More manipulation to follow.
“So, why don't you grab us something to eat from in there, scrounge around and bring it out here
...we could sit on the steps, like a picnic or something..” once again, putting it out there.
“Oh hell yea, I saw some good shit in there too...like cinnamon rolls, or something like that” He was looking up, as if he was sniffing the air for a smell of homemade breads. “I'll be right back, I'll grab that and whatever else looks good....you want something to drink too?” he asks so sweetly. I am pleased with this outcome.
“Sure, a juice if they have it” I reply with misdirected intention. And just like that, he is in the kitchen and I am on the grass beating a path to the driveway. I left him my cig's....a weird notion, but a thank you nonetheless.
FIRE by Kasabian
The asphalt driveway is longer then I anticipated, and the gate has a lock I didn't see. I look around for another way out only to see the staff entrance. In my mind right now I am Sarah Conner's from Terminator, nothing can slow my determination. I am on full conditioned confidence. This part of my brain is a good part. I wish I could embrace it often in my life, as I might have been able to accomplish a good life, finish a goal, finish anything. More importantly, believe in life and love. This woman in me right now is a fighter. She is solid and of warranted expression. Of self entitlement and adversity. Sick, but still arrogant and egotistically driven. Physical self, self image, all deluded to a mind's moment of necessary being. Flight or fight. I had no idea what I was running to, but I was full again to know what I was running from. I stopped and looked around. My own breath heavy with excitement of free. It was so dark, I wondered why they couldn't afford more lights for their employees coming and going. I amazed myself with a sane thought. Off in the distance I could hear lil' Mex scurrying around the kitchen. I flattened against the brick wall and studied the staff entrance. No one was around, so I took off running towards the entrance begging the staff behind the large windows would see a crazy lady sprinting across the front lawn. I landed behind a burgundy Scion car and thought how nice. I crouched down what seemed like eternity, just three feet to freedom. I bolted up and out towards the gate, feeling empowered, feeling a gut smile for what lays ahead. I could return to streets, or better, I could head towards the mountains and the waters, start new. My delusions of grandeur where so full on in this moment. I was believing I belonged. I was believing this place was the reason for all which was wrong with me. I rationalized my mind's leavings was due to being in a crazy place. I was really okay. I could start over, I was young enough to still find love, to have it all. It was this place which made me feel insane and hopeless. Not me myself. The blame belonged to what had happened to me in here. They were all crazy here. I don't have any family, certainly not a brother. All these thoughts running with my feet, joy somewhere beginning in a little flame. I got to the gate. Breathing heavily and shaking, I rattled the clip, shaking the metal down, and slipped through. It was in this moment, I was birthed. It had always been these moments. The only time I have ever felt alive and free in my whole life was when I was running from something. My earliest recollections had been running away from my mom. From home. From towns. From love. From people. From responsibilities. It is hard to explain the adrenaline high which feeds you complete utter happiness, offers anonymity, in the moment of recognizable freedom. To have no identity, to be no one...it all correlates to a polar opposite of the same thing in my head, except brought out by depression and complete hopelessness. I live at both extremes. What a weird irony that the same thing which makes you utterly happy, also commands such desperation for you to end it all. In my glorious fleeting, I walked slower down around the bend of the long way out. I was looking for the main road, but found it hard to see with the large overgrown lilac bushes gracing the pavement. Lilacs had always been my favorite smell, marking the way from winter to spring. They were not in bloom now, I couldn't figure what season we were deep in. I kept staring at my feet, thinking how much they hated shoes. Shoes were confining, like everything else in life. Confinement at any costs, sucks. I kept walking. I was thinking about the word confinement and what a deeply frightened conceptual word it really was. Life is brought to you one time only and if it is one of confinement in any way, shape, or form, then it surely isn't a life worth living. And aren't people confined anyways? In some aspect of their life isn't there a shadow hanging over them, reeking of confinement? A bad marriage, a bad job, a bad child, a bad attitude...it could be just about anything I thought. Confinement. Confined. I was busy ruminating on this word and how it fit like liquid mercury into each humans life. I didn't see what was coming. My head was down. I didn't see the car slow and park. THE FUNERAL by band of horses I didn't see the lights go off. I was watching my feet, listening to my breath, thinking about confinement. I started to walk righteously by the old green car, talking to myself, letting my long blond hair get caught with my words. Occasionally spitting the hair out of my mouth, feeling child like. I was the child running away from home again. And he was the reminder I couldn't. It was a long minute with a long arm head locking me down to my knees. I was gasping for air as my hair covered my face leaving me to suck it in with every breath. It was the same smell. The smell of cheap counter cologne, of spearmint gum and cigarettes. I fought with what warrior I had left in me....stomping on his feet with mine, elbowing his groin. I was thinking about the stuff they teach you in self defense class and how in time of need, it really doesn't work. I was thinking about life, my kids, and my thoughts were speeding conclusions and judgment of my whole life lived. He was going to kill me. And once again, on the road of two extremes, one where I wanted to always die, lived the fear of dying now before me. I was going to be murdered. A statistic. A body found in a ditch with no clothes on. Most likely, arranged in a position of little dignity or modesty. I was scrapping the pavement with bloody knees and tasting blood from my face. Red. My color. I didn't remember asking Red to visit this time. My mind was expanding and shrinking fast. Insane. Sane. Who knows. It's all the same. Insane. All the compartments of my mind were on and a thousand women were leaking out from it. To be delirious of intentions at once is a crazy thing in and of itself. I recognized weakness, strength, hopelessness, perseverance...all that I am in this dying scene. I WAS somebody once, I DID have people who loved me despite myself, and I DID matter. I loved my children with vibrancy and purpose. No matter whether or not I was ever loved by my own mother, I loved them unconditionally to eternity...and now, would they ever know? Rushing seconds of what really mattered in my life was tearing out my eyes as he continued to choke hold me, to drag me behind the car....him, sputtering words about bitches and cunts as I imagined most murderers do while they torture their victim till dead. I wanted to scream for God's mercy, as I have many times before in seemingly less important situations then this. This could be an act of God. Maybe, I thought, this is his mercy. Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it. I always feared being the statistic though...front page news...the weird death. The woman with a stick up her vagina resembling a cross, or the one found so much later, the forensics lab would have to study the maggot larvae for duration of decay. But here I was, in horror of my own dying moment...and still stringing thoughts like I was taking a walk on a sunny day. I felt my heart beating the words...rape is coming on, rape is coming on...the demon with the gum, the new orderly was the past come to greet me. He had been sent from the hell's of my life to bring it all down to a final conclusion. So I would know who I was, so I would never forget the child standing before her mother with a knife. “Go on, kill yourself....no one will ever love you anyways”. She was back and inside of him. All the bullying I withstood as a child was in his force upon me. And there was more. My uncle who raped me until I was 15, the prison system taking me down to zero, boyfriends manipulating my world, and even my father stood with my mother...because he chose to be in death with 'her', than with me in life. A hurricane of emotional distress was beating out the physical motions being played without absolution. Without forgiveness, clarity of a life created for the use of others. My children would have to live with this l
egacy. “Oh...you are the one whose mother was raped and murdered after she tried to escape the loony bin...I am so sorry” and the pity looks would unify and collect upon their souls to deal with. Because that is what my love does...it leaves a lasting sour taste in the heart. I am what my mother says I am. And now I am dying.