they all say “interesting” but I anthropomorphize animals and inanimate objects so things in the house don’t always last long. we have to get rid of things. the things that watch me. but they say “interesting” and at night in dreams I shriek as I begin to dream of you again. watching me like the conch shell that sits on my dresser, you too stony, silent and always near.

I woke up yesterday after kissing you. I woke up today having you embrace me. I will wake up tomorrow scarred from the imaginary forcing a dog to lick my toes.

“get rid of that conch shell.”

I make tons of lists and notes. constantly and incessantly, I have to write things down for fear they will not happen, I will forget or it will not be purged from my body if I don’t. some I delete, erase, tear up, burn, drown but others have to be witnessed, spoken to a human and released. I have dozens, thousands really, of notes to myself. the mundane lists to the abhorrent (I will drown my daughter in the bathtub one day) to the secret.

I have entire secret notebooks, drawers, places. when the men come around, it is a secret. if it were up to me, I would have entire locked rooms they could not access. but I like them as witnesses.

“you’re brushing your teeth a lot.”

“I don’t want my teeth to fall out.”

“will brushing your teeth make it worse?”

yes 

“Of course not!”

and then such fits of panic. I try to maintain myself in front of them but I become unraveled slowly with the hiding. they don’t trust my need for solitude or long walks. if they touch my phone, I shriek and ask for it back. they cannot borrow my computer or use any notebooks. they can’t come over unannounced for fear i will be entranced in some game and they will walk in the way my ex did once to see my face contorted, me affixed on the straw. and then the way I watch myself.

but then sometimes we can’t have the mirrors anymore.

“help me move this.”

a house with five mirrors reduced to none, all covered with blankets or placed in the basement or storage. or the one time I made them throw out the doll for fear it was watching me.  and I can’t look at my teeth, or my skin or my hands or anything suddenly so no one can have mirrors and everyone must sit and wait for me to outgrow another panic.  when the men come around, it is heightened. and they are the only witnesses too.

that is why I bought a two story two bedroom house recently. there will be a room they can’t enter and passwords on everything and the kitchen is huge. I will make dinner and keep the mirrors up and spin for them and I will begin like this:

let me tell you the story about ___ first.

“What use is knowing anything if no one is around to watch you know it?”

—kaveh akbar

“Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable.”

annihilation, Jeff vandermeer

new post on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/28326410

read a brief overview. i use my intuition to work with the moon. I am not an astrologer and do not possess an in depth view of astrology, but a surface level witches view.

“Sadia?”

Where to begin. I debated sitting on the toilet and then dunking my head in there but then I would have proven them right. People who wear the red bracelet are not to be trusted. I wanted to be trusted. I was someone who should be trusted. There were no knives in here, only applesauce. I dried my hands out, walked out, gave a weak smile.

“Everything good?” Aarav asked.
Nodding, I balled my hands into fist so he couldn’t see the straw. He led me to a small shared office. Dr. Morris was already inside.
“Hello, Sadia,” he reached out to shake my hand.
Anticipating this, earlier I had switched the straw from my right to my left hand. Decidedly, the straw would keep me grounded. It was not a good time to bring this up.
“Hello.”
He gestured to the chair.
“Aarav will be helping me conduct the intake today. Is that alright?”
There is no choice here. My red bracelet shone like a traffic light (stop this, Sadia) in his eyes and he stared at it waiting for my reply.
“Of course,” I stared at his eyes, waiting for him to catch mine.

But there was paperwork on the table, things to be sorted, a pen to be picked up. My red bracelet gave them plenty of information. I was to be watched, monitored, kept under surveillance.

“So Sadia,” Aarav cut in. He was sitting to my right and I had not even noticed that he had picked up a clipboard and was posed with pen, ready to begin. “What brings you in today?”

Where the fuck do you begin with such an open-ended question like that? Is this really how an intake is done? Yes, it is. I had sat through dozens of them. What brings you in today? Novice.

Reading my mind, Dr. Morris interjected, swiveling his chair towards me, “Why don’t you start by telling us how you got here yesterday.”

“I walked.”

I had decided in the bathroom that the best course of action was to tell the truth as much as possible. While others have ideas of what I might represent or be hiding in my murk, I am a confessor. Catholic, superstitious, ritualistic and truth telling. I was going to practice my principles while also maintaining some sense of dignity, not incriminating myself and focusing on getting the red bracelet off of me. There was no way in any hell on any earth in any galaxy that I was going to drown myself in a dirty toilet in a psych hospital in Philadelphia when I could cut my own bungee cord, plug my oxygen tank while scuba diving off the coast of the Atlantic or dive off a thirty-five story skyscraper into traffic. With all of these options wide open to me, and all my history of restraint, there was no way I was killing myself in this hospital. So I started there.

“I have no desire to kill myself.”

“Well, we can get to that, “Dr. Morris kept eye contact. His eyes were a striking kind of blue that made me blush a little. Jarring how handsome he was. Detracted from his age and wrinkles. “Right now, just tell me about yesterday.”

Aarav was already furiously writing which irritated me. I had said one sentence and I was still wearing the red bracelet so none of it was of use.

“I left my house yesterday to go on a walk and ended up walking to center city and back, which isn’t unusual, except I had no food or water and it was the hottest day in October. I felt my mouth shut tight at some point in the middle of a crowd at some art festival and had to pry it open with my own hands. Or at least that’s what it felt like.”

I was gesturing a lot but keeping the straw hidden. Animated is good. It shows life, vibrancy, a person who can tell linear stories is a person who can be trusted. Moving my hands also created a distraction and allowed me to think carefully about what to reveal and when and what to focus on to get the bracelet off.

“I had never experienced that but lately it has felt like I can’t swallow or I am not chewing right or something is wrong with my mouth and throat and when it happened, I got scared.  I didn’t want to drink anything in case it happened again and I just started walking back but my mind was racing and I felt like my jaw was continuing to shut and I thought I could never eat or drink again.”

Aarav was writing. Dr. Morris was nodding and listening. I was explaining with hands and facial expression and coming to life, this pliable doll who says nothing to anyone for fear of intrusion.

“Twice, I called 911 thinking I was choking recently after taking vitamins.”
“You called 911?”
“Yes, and once I even went to the hospital but it appeared to be psychosomatic so I left and then yesterday, I must have gotten so carried away, I walked all the way back, barely recollecting it and fainted in the lobby out of sheer hunger and dehydration. Because I was so out of it, they thought I was from” I gestured to the air and thought about what happened but it felt like decades ago “some further place or somewhere else and had just been walking for miles. Which I was.”

I leaned forward to emphasize that I had been walking for miles but I also hadn’t been able to explain myself.

“So they admitted me for dehydration and exhaustion and because of my fear, I didn’t explain myself well and they thought I was dissociating, which, I guess, I kind of was, but I was also perseverating around choking which I told them.”
Dr. Morris looked down at the ground, “And did you say anything about wanting to harm yourself?”

Think.

“I said, I’m so tired sometimes I want to die and I sobbed a lot and was incoherent. I think they took that as a suicide threat but that’s not what I meant. I meant, I’m exhausted from feeling confused about what’s happening with my body.”

Dr. Morris and Aarav both nodded and I nodded feeling proud of myself for telling the truth and for gaining their trust immediately.

grace is the way your loose hanging pants fit right over the ankle bracelet because they are out of fashion. they are not tight. you are awkward and out of fashion and therefore you are able to hide your shame with khaki colored loose hanging pants that are professional but unflattering. combined with your giant teal sweater you could stand against a wall for days and no one would give you a second look. this is refreshing and when you lie on the couch in the break room no one can see what you are really hiding.

“just need to get away for a second.”
“I completely get it,” Rebecca said. “need any help?”
“nope, everyone is good and took their meds and I am going to do the sign out in a second.”

I made no attempts to charm her or start anymore conversation. we sat in silence while she finished her paperwork at the desk and then wished me goodnight on her way to the other property with our other clients. I laid there for five more minutes without movement which felt like a record. when I did break my spell to shift my body, I saw it. the four lines on my arm. horizontal so as not to bleed out.

I remember coming home from work, in a similar mood as the day I was on the couch in my job’s office, but hungry. I was very hungry. didn’t eat dinner with everyone in the dining room like I usually did. didn’t snack while I was there.  I was making toast or something easy and fast. I opened the drawer to find every single knife was gone. even the butter knives.

“(redacted)!”
he walked out.
“where the fuck are the knives?”
he just looked at me.
“where are the knives, (redacted)?” I asked again, visibly irritated, still in dirty work uniform, hair in a ponytail. no makeup. no real substance.
“I hid them.”

“Sadia?”

where am I?

I am washing my hands in the psych unit at Presbyterian hospital noticing my scars are gone. 

“how to forget everything day 2,140”