good ol’ days

Let's try this one more time.

The earth smells warmer now. I look out of the window and find myself parallel with the sky. Picture the mimosa tree that is supposed to be there but no longer is, as I also no longer am. Something has shifted. The window is there but then it is not. The lights are on and then they are not. There's a lightning bolt in the mirror and one across my chest. I open my eyes. There's a man sitting across the room on some days, an empty chair on others. He's there more often than not, demanding answers that I don't have. But he's the only company I have that after a certain point, I start fabricating answers just to keep him there a little longer.

Let's try this one more time.

My name feels heavy. My eyelids are too burdensome to lift. I ask for some water. The sun looks faint, discolored. The man comes back again. Leaves again. Comes back. Leaves. I try to untangle the stars from my head. Even breathing feels easier when someone is around to witness. Isn't that what everyone ultimately wants—someone to bear witness? "Here, watch my cacophony in all its glory." On Tuesdays, there's a woman lurking in the corner of my room. She never sits. She never talks. She just glares at me with beady, liquid eyes. My fingernails turn blue. Then translucent. Once upon a time, I didn't even have the courage to let someone look at my open, naked palms. And now... And now...

Let's try this one last time.

One more day. One more step. One more sound. Without the man here, all I have left to break the silence is the grating voice of the news anchor from the TV mounted to the wall. But it doesn't matter how often he leaves or for how long. He always comes back. In the midst of all the chaos, his visits have become the only constant, the only security. I'm still trying to figure out how to ask him to stay without saying the words because saying the words would be the fastest way to get him to leave. The water in my glass has turned stale. I spill two droplets on my open, naked palm (of the hand with the tremor.) they slide down the gaps between my fingers, almost mockingly, almost humanely, as if to make fun of me for ever thinking I could hold something so fluid in my hands.