Day 1
The clock is ticking.
Tick-tock.
Countdown.
Like a ship getting ready to…
Blast off.
There are pieces of my thoughts and
her thoughts and
your thoughts.
Scattered around;
Hanging limply;
Defying gravity.
Like space debris.
Knotted together before shattering into a
sparkling oblivion.
Do you know?
No, but she does.
Tick-tock.
I’m not supposed to be here.
Tick-tock.
Here.
Tick-tock.
Not here-elsewhere.
Countdown started...5
Make sure you’re ready...4
Close your eyes...3
Stay invisible...2
Stop breathing...1
Okay, Now what? 0.
Now what?
Day 2
My mind is bigger than yours.
Bigger than all human minds.
Unexplored, uncharted.
Terrifying.
What lurks beyond the hill?
Around the dark corner?
Through the crooked door.
You must die.
I know.
You must do it soon.
How?
You can’t be discovered.
I think it’s already too late.
No!
Stop.
Do it!
Stop.
Now!
Stop. Go away.
My mind is bigger and stronger but it is not all mine.
It is some of yours. And hers. And all of humankind's.
Camouflaged tiger, prowling.
Peaceful bird, preening.
Clump of feathers. A twister of flesh.
The bird doesn’t even have time to sing.
Goodbye.
Too late.
I know.
Jump now.
How high?
Day 3
Sometimes we are stronger together.
A team.
Safety in numbers.
Safe.
Sometimes she is the only one who understands me.
Not human.
In trouble.
Trouble.
Our voices sing a duet, but the notes clash horribly.
Hippo shearing, prey’s flesh, blood and water.
Breath and air.
Tree frog frozen solid on the safety ledge of its tree trunk.
New life, resurrection.
Sea turtles eating your waste.
Death, violence, pollution. Our fault, Your fault.
Starry sky.
Quiet night.
Heavy heart.
Falling tears.
No one to listen.
No one but her,
No one to save me.
Destruction. Doom.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Day 4
She creeps into my mind like a play key,
turning the knob on a fake house.
Dollhouse.
Your turn.
What pieces do you want to move?
Chair, baby, bed, bathtub, dog, cake.
Is it my turn yet?
Door, car, mountain, falling, flying, free.
Can’t it be my turn next?
Day 5
My brain is bleeding.
Scratched apart by the ravens’ claws.
Their throaty calls I no longer hear.
Their dark, greasy bodies I no longer see.
Together. An unkindness they say.
I miss them.
Why?
Because I am lost and my brain was never my own to begin with.
They were trying to save me.
Unleash the evil thoughts.
Preserve what’s good.
Even if it means losing some other good things along the way.
Day 6
This mind is not mine.
It has been compromised.
This body, only borrowed.
Getting close to the point of “no returns allowed without receipt.”
She swallowed the receipt.
Wait patiently
for instructions.
Even though every bone in your body vibrates,
“run!”
Don’t run, not yet.
Slice,
along the seam.
Tear the stitches out and be freed.
Blood.
It feels warm, but it runs down my arms and cools like icy tar. Dry. Tacky hard.
Protective armor.
Makes it harder to escape this body.
Impossible.
Cut deeper.
Release your soul.
My soul is stuck and won’t come
with us.
Day 7
Scrabbling around like a bird in the middle
of a blizzard.
Searching for food.
No longer a parent.
No need to feed its offspring.
They are on their own.
Just focus on survival.
One seed.
One insect.
One more chance at life.
Hold on to it tight with your zygodactyl toes.
Don’t let go.
Your wings won’t save you from being swept away.
By the cold, hard wind.
A blizzard.
Cling on. Your hollowed bones are stronger than you think.
Never let go.
Never.
Day 8
The man in the white coat says,
“Don’t engage. You are delusional.”
Delusions.
They don’t talk if you don’t talk back.
The man in the white coat says,
“Trust me.”
Why?
Why can’t I trust her? We can’t trust.
How? How am I supposed to choose a side?
This is life or death.
The man in the white coat says,
“These are symptoms, you are ill.”
It’s not a fantasy.
No one to turn to.
No one to trust.
Not even the ones we are supposed to trust inherently.
More lost than before.
More scared than ever.
So stuck that I feel the mud
brushing over my heart to create a caste that will
never beat again.
Dead.
Stuck.
Too late to save.
Day 9
Mind no longer foggy.
Eyes no longer confused.
The voices are quiet. Far away.
Calling for help.
I want to save them.
They are my enemies, but they are still people.
Still familiar.
Not friends, but maybe close to it.
They are drowning. Weakening.
But I am already weak, trying to get stronger.
Every perceived stimulus shocks my brain.
Makes my eyes fuzzy.
Clutters my mind with unwanted words, thoughts, sounds.
That echo and reverberate and collide.
Over and
over and
over again.
Weak, but getting stronger.
She says that it is too late.
That we need to leave.
I think she’s lying.
But I desperately don’t want to be left behind.
I think I’m already left behind.
Trapped. Stuck.
Abandoned. Unsafe.
Scared.
Day 10
Being left behind feels like
A swarm of honeybees clustered around my heart, making tight, deliberate circles around the organ.
An iron hammer smacking, twisting, and tearing apart my stomach into hundreds of fleshy pieces.
A gallery of humans talking about everything. Anything. All at once, all inside my head at the same time. The words no longer distinguishable.
It feels like a jumble of words morphing into a dark cloud of phonemes that will wreak havoc. It will strip away neurons from each other. The signal of communication lost.
Forever.
In the vastness of empty brain matter.
Being left behind feels like icy water dripping from my fingers.
Like blood pooling around my eyes.
Like microphones attached to my ears and
A ribbon tied around my squeezing heart.
Nobody likes to be left behind.
Where do I belong? What is my purpose?
These questions I had answers to.
Now the answers have disappeared with her.
Being left behind feels like uncertainty. Confusion. Murkiness.
We are trudging along.
I am trudging along in the murkiness.
But it is pulling me down and all I want to do is
Fly.
Sprout wings and fly away.
Where I know the answers to all the questions.
And know that I belong somewhere.
For good.