Taking the Psycho Path

Just to find someone

Thanking me for blessing them

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.”

Always brings curses along with the blessings. By now, I should have outgrown my surprise at this phenomenon. Maybe next year. The leaves drop and the rain turns to snow and the government steals the only usable hour of sunshine I get. I gain a year of wisdom and I draw my family close and hope that arguments die before they can blossom. I shiver in bed. I shiver in the bath. After a few weeks the cold settles into my bones and I stop. Sometimes, the unending grey is a comfort. I'm tired.

2. The thing outside my window

Makes me keep my blinds drawn, because the thing outside my window is not a thing at all. It’s the noise of the road and the prying glare of the streetlights. It’s the creak and sway of the old trees. I used to throw the helicopter seeds down into the road for cars to crush, laughing all the while. The thing outside the window is my own reflection--can’t make eye contact with myself without worrying that ghosts are looking back at me. My reflection’s eyes hold more past than future and I don't want to remember. I’m tired. 

3. Chamomile 

Of the sun has kept me warm

now the days are getting shorter

darker, colder and festering reignition 

of all the times I should have burned

driving me insane, comfort by pain

it hurts but I know I'll live because

stretching herself round my ribs,

holding my lungs to ransom.

I have a fear of sleeping.

This tiny cat is courageous, her paws held in prayer at the base of my ear.

I breathe her in,