XXXVII | Some Black Flowers
❦
I wake up
and the nurses aren’t
following me like shadows
anymore.
Moonlight Sonata
seeps
through the walls.
I’m alone.
I’ll go back
to sleep.
My body moves
without my knowledge.
I’m downstairs
before I know it.
Gavin
(seated in his armchair)
closes his eyes
to avoid
seeing me walk past.
Tammie smiles at me from hers,
swinging her legs.
There’re
more bruises
than before.
She’s pole dancing
all wrong
because there’s
no one to teach her.
I remember
the reckless promise I made to Tammie.
Thanks to that slip up of reality,
Tammie now thinks
we’ll be friends even outside this asylum.
I don’t remember
what she did back then
but telling her,
‘I can’t. I want to die,’
is no good
anymore.
I’m starting to think about the future.
❦
What’s wrong with you?
Tammie’s changing
into one of the leotards
from the cupboard.
I’m looking out the window
at the patternless
blue sky.
She pulls her shorts
over it.
Are you hallucinating again?
The nurses have stopped tailing me
—a good sign that
‘I’m not.’
I try
to focus on Tammie
pole dancing.
In all the years spent in hospitals,
I’ve seen
crazy people
doing crazy things,
but this
might be the
craziest
thing
ever.
One final stretch
and she cartwheels into the pole.
It catches her
like a lover.
She’s giggling
as she spins around
in a dizzying fit
of passion.
Don’t think of anything else, Fifi.
Just look at me.
I don’t
want
to.
I want
my own reason
to live.
She whirls,
limbs contorting into positions
I don’t think are possible.
Her dance
is
gruesome.
Like having haemophobia
and being forced to watch someone
bleed.
Were we really
friends
before?
Someone with this much life,
this much…
recklessness?
What is she doing here?
Is her eating disorder
the reason she’s like this?
It doesn’t matter.
I want to die.
At the end of the day,
who
Tammie is
isn’t
the problem.
Who I am
is the reason
I can’t
leave this place.
Who are you, then?
It’s not Tammie.
She’s breathing too hard to talk,
Veins in her arms
pulsing,
joints turning red.
She
looks
like a twisted doll.
I pick up the dance book
she was
reading.
Why is she bringing this with her
everywhere?
I flip the pages
to find
the spell
that enchanted her
and gave her
a newfound reason to live
—with a dream
that’ll make sane people laugh.
After all,
here in Wonderland,
no one gets to leave.
We’re here
for the rest
of our lives.
The words
slide
off the page—
water
on a window pane.
I spend
one hour re-reading the same sentence
without knowing
what it says.
Whatever it is
Tammie found,
I’ll
never find it.
Maybe Tammie
is the one Krishna
was referring to
—that first day
in the greenhouse—
who’ll manage to leave the asylum.
She’s doing well.
I don’t
turn my head
towards the voice.
Habit.
If I do,
I’m acknowledging the hallucination.
The same voice again:
But you’re not happy.
A person appears
beside me.
A real person.
Krishna.
The Indian fortuneteller
with grey streaks of hair
that I was just thinking about.
She doesn’t look me
in the eye
but slightly off
to the right.
‘If I’m happy,
‘I won’t be here.’
I’m happy,
she says,
hugging her knees,
rocking
to and fro,
to and fro.
But I’m here.
She has a spade in her hand.
You don’t need a dream
to live.
Most people don’t dream.
I decide
that maybe she’s a hallucination.
Tammie’s twisted around the pole
like a swan
skewered through the middle.
I can’t help
but look away.
(She’s waiting for me
to praise her—I can tell.)
What’s a nice way
to tell someone
they’re really ugly?
‘I’m looking for black flowers,’
Krishna says,
and I ignore her
again.
She stands
and crouches
in front of me
so I have no choice but to meet her black deep-set eyes.
‘You won’t find it here,’
I tell her eyes.
She tilts her head,
her braid follows the movement
like a tail,
eyes twinkling
hypnotically.
‘Can you paint some for me?’
Her breath smells
of peanut butter.
Some time passes
before I’m able to answer.
‘No.’
❦
