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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”

I went to “breakfast” wearing my scrubs, hair completely dry already. I kept touching it like I forgot what I did. I wasn’t hungry but they placed a giant tray in front of me so I moved the grits around with a fork.

“You’re new?” a woman asked me.

“Yes.”

She yelled out into the hallway like it was only the two of us in there.

“Is Morris doing consults today?”

“Yes,” another woman walked in the room. White. Overweight. “He will be starting about 9:30.”

The black woman who had first asked me if I was new eyed my bracelet. Still red.

“Until Dr. Morris gets here, you gotta hang out where I can see you.”
“No problem.”
I moved some grits around with my spoon.
“And you gotta eat,” she tossed over her shoulder.

The clock read 7:45. What would I do until 11:30? I examined my hard boiled egg, my carton of milk, my dietary restrictions (I’ll choke) being completely ignored again. What shall I do with all this tiiiime? I sat and stared. There was a couple syrupy peaches I ate. I drank the water. I noticed nothing and sat alone facing a wall. Every once in a while, I noticed the male attendant out of the corner of my eye checking me out. It wasn’t just the red bracelet. It was everything.

At 8:15, Shaina came back over. I know her name because she said I’m Shaina and stared at me.
“You’re not hungry?”
“I’m vegan.”
Shaina kind of lifted her eyebrows and paused.
“You may have a hard time in here.”

Maybe it’s the doe eyes or the white privilege or the red bracelet or the fact that there was still some faint permanent marker on the back of my shaved head; some child’s scrawl of desperation, a love not that made the applesauce keep appearing but when I blinked she had returned with it.
“I’ll see what I can do about lunch,” she set it down. “And don’t go anywhere,” she added as she took the rest of my tray leaving only the half drank apple juice box.

Being delivered in a tiny medicine cup, I drank the water in one gulp. I slurped the juice box in two sips. Liquids didn’t give me as much pause. No mistake day. Shaina bussed the tables which gave me something to watch for the next twenty minutes. No one talked that morning and I immediately took the blame. I felt like I was the cause of some rift between the two staff: male and female and that they weren’t saying anything because I was in the room. The news was on in the background. A forecast of doom; something about Israel, something about Sudan, something about Trump. An endless propaganda trough that I couldn’t turn off and I wanted to politely ask Shaina if she though it was better to have nothing but then maybe she was the one who wanted it.

“Excuse me,” I meekly began.
With women it was different. It’s about acqueiscence.
“Do you think you can turn off the TV or change the channel?”
“Yeah,” she reached into her pocket for the remote. “This is garbage anyway.”
No mistake day.

By 9:45, I was deep in contemplation. No mistake days put a lot of external pressure on me to perform correctly. When Dr. Morris called me in, and he hadn’t arrived yet,  I had been watching the door, I would have to choose one path and stick to it. One story, one story told in linear order would have to flow effortlessly from my mouth. I lean towards desultory. It’s not that I don’t want passion, it’s that I am completely apathetic to any consequence or windfall that hits me. I once told a girlfriend of mine that I was worried people didn’t like me sometimes, and she responded by saying, really? I could never tell if you even liked me. your apathy is chilling. Don’t start there.

“Sadia.”

This is the problem with magical thinking. One of the resident doctors appeared out of nowhere in the doorway of the cafeteria. I had been sitting here for almost an hour quietly thinking and trying not to mumble. The attendant had been on his phone most of the time and no one had bothered me. Was I muttering?

“Dr. Morris is on his way and wants me to start the interview,” the man approached me slightly. “My name is Aarav.”

He stuck his hand out and I reached but realized I had the juice box straw still clasped in my palm.

“Excuse me,” I looked at my hands. “I’d like to wash my hands first.”
“Of course,” and he gestured to the doorway.

I said nothing as he led me down the hall to the bathroom. I am always careful about what I say even though I will go into long tangents at a time. I choose each word deliberately. I choose each story carefully. I pick where I go with vocabulary and inflection even if I wander through life carelessly.

“You’re perfunctory,” a gentleman once told me.

Do not start there. Indifference is a sociopath. Start with feeling. Aarav waited outside of my room while I washed my hands. Taking my time, I scrubbed in between my fingers today, longer than usual. It felt good to have the water pour over them like that. Sensation. A returning hunger for touch. Apathy. I’m cool to the touch. No, she said really? I never thought  you cared. Your complete indifference to everyone is so strong sometimes it hurts. That’s what my friend said. Sometimes it hurts.

“I will do anything to avoid getting carried away
sleep nightly with coins over my eyes
set fire to an entire zodiac.”

-kaveh akbar

God keep me tethered to this earth.

I remember a particular harrowing incident. perhaps it wasn’t clear to anyone involved in my life at the moment but it was my head that was doing it. this was years before the second DUI, before the ankle bracelet, before the mandatory breaths. my partner and I, my now ex that just bailed me out, used to steal liquor from the hotel we worked at and sit on the beach and drink. tonight, it was everclear and slurpee. my choice.I had been explaining to him again, inexplicably, how death is following me everywhere I go and that I need some answers.

“What do you mean answers?” he asked.
“Answers,” I repeated, looking over at him. “About this.”

I was sloshing my slurpee and waving it around, emphasizing how great this all was before I just began charging into the ocean with my clothes on. I was always so sudden like that it was hard to keep a grip on me. My poor mother. I never forgave her for being so smothering of me but at the time, it made sense. She had to watch me every second or I would be off in the deep end at the pool with no water wings, climbing the high dive, climbing the giant slide, hobbling to the lake with my sprained ankle.

“We cannot keep you away from water,” she said dragging me into the house after I had jumped head first into a mud puddle after a bath. “How did you sneak out?”

I was up to my thighs hearing my partner call for me, worried tone, anxious and alone on the blanket. I kept walking until it hit my waist and then my chest and heard him screaming. I didn’t want to come back that night. The waves were quiet and the tide was relatively low. I walked up to my neck and then let my head go under, my partner screaming in the background. No, the first time I asked nature to take me was not the night I totaled my car. When I went to get it from the impound lot thinking it was still driveable, they all looked aghast by my question.

“Can I drive it out of here?”
“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to tow it out of here. The entire front end is demolished, shot. There is battery acid all over the car.”
“But will it start?”
He took me to look at it and I cried. It had been a nice car.
“The airbags didn’t deploy though,” he said as if it had a meaning I understood.
Gritted I was and trying to hold back temper, “Well that means I just fucking hit my head harder.”
“You’re gonna have to tow it,” he walked away, uncomfortable.
But to where?

“How to forget everything day 64”

grace is the bruise the ankle bracelet leaves so you can work your regular job as a caregiver for those with intellectual disabilities, and the time they give you, the “grace period,” to get from your job to the grocery store in case you need to get dinner. I always needed something. I went to the grocery store everyday to get vegan hot dogs and buns and ketchup even if I had food at home. just needed to leave the blue room, the blue wall, the cracks I watched as I charged my leg. I always needed something from the store.

“At least I am not drinking.”

I microwaved my dinner and it was still kind of cold. the tv was all commercials.

“But why.”

“How to forget everything day 63”

It was hard not to react. If I learned anything from life, it’s that hedging your bets and bluffing will get you further than confession but that didn’t stop me from sometimes blurting out the things that hurt me.

“Patricia, chill,” Aaron said.

Her name was Patricia Carbloni and I knew her well. In AP statistics I learned that you can guess the dice are going to land a certain way each time but it’s best to assume you won’t get snake eyes, and it’s best to assume you won’t get doubles. If you get doubles, it’s best to assume you won’t get double doubles and it’s best to assume you won’t always win.

“You can’t always win,” Mrs. Shepherd said to me in class.

I was losing. I was making the wrong guesses. We were guessing which pairs would come up next; an impossible game that now looking back, I realize Mrs. Shepherd had set up simply to teach us that probability isn’t fortune telling.

“I know, of course,” I smiled at her.

I passed AP statistics with a 92 and the AP placement test at the end of the year for college credit.  Despite my eighth grade teachers thinking I was not up for the challenge to continue some of my advanced placement, I was one of the highest scores in government and psychology, and went on to become Summa Cum Laude in college, enrolled in three honor societies, and received one of the highest scores on the psychology placement test. You can’t always win but you can memorize, read faces, bluff. My parents taught me at a young age how to do two things: survive and lie.

“Here, Sadia, here,” Aaron motioned towards my bed.

Patricia scoffed.

“Saaaadddddieeeeeaaaa,” she sung and stood up walking over to us.

My parents taught me how to play spades when I was seven years old. That’s a young age to learn such a complex card game; a game that requires silent communication with a partner and an ability to predict the moves of your opponent each round like clockwork.
This game also requires fortunetelling. You have to bid on how many tricks you will win at the beginning of the game after looking at only your hand, not your partners. This requires intution. Depending on where your seated depends on when you make your bid. In this way, I felt like being last was an advantage. We didn’t always bid. When they were first teaching me they left that part out, but my mom and I won a lot. They taught me how to bid on tricks.

I always wanted to help count the books to help keep score with my mom. It was an extra task that I enjoyed, coveted, felt special taking on like I was useful even if I lost. I hated losing and I rarely did. I was a studious observer when it was game time. You have to pay attention to the cards, the mannerisms of your partner and the mannerisms of your opponents. If my brother threw a ten pretty early, he had a bad hand and soon he would throw a trump to show my Dad he absolutely had a bad hand. He would start sometimes with a high card to bluff but nothing above a seven. If my mom started with high cards, I was expected to match them so we could make our books last. If my mom threw a low card we had time. There was no talking or any kind of obvious movement. Little nods to affirm me. I had to learn to count cards and if you’re watching the books, sometimes you can peek if you’ve forgotten but everyone agrees that is cheating. If you’re dad gets drunk enough, the hand doesn’t matter and your brother will storm off anyway.

Patricia was enjoying this and I had about five seconds to decide what story I wanted to go with. I turned to my bed and sat down and looked at aaron. Demured.

“I’m good,” I said ignoring her. “I’m going to rest.”

Aaron looked at me and then her and then walked out. I expected that. Sometimes I like to group things in themes to help me keep track of my life so I will call this.

                            1. The story of Patricia Carbloni

I knew that Patricia would not be in the hospital long. She frequently called the police on the facility she was living in, walked off the premises and was always found quickly and returned. She liked to get away and complain to new people. She also liked making new enemies. Pointing out all of your flaws immediately was her forte.  The pro here is that she also told long and winding stories that had no ending and made no sense so people stopped listening even if she was right about someone’s incompetence or insolence. The con is I am her incompetent, insolent, insane social worker.  I could not pretend I was someone else in front of her. As scared of revealing my life to this institution as I was, ethics trumped this round.

“So Sadia,” she began and sat on the bed with me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

She laughed deeply like she always did. She coughed right after and got back up to walk back over to her bed.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul.”

She was facing the window.

“IF you give me fifty million dollars and the socks off your feet.”

She brayed and I laid down and remembered how usual this really was. Patricia’s threats and cackle. Bidding tricks. Being uncomfortable in a bed too small for me. She went on for a while but said nothing about my identity when staff came back to check on us before lights out. I ended up falling asleep somehow. Pure exhaustion eventually empties the brain and I woke up only because I felt something tickle my face. It was Patricia. She was standing over me grazing me the corner of the pillowcase and holding the pillow like she was going to smother me. When I looked at her, she dropped it on my face.

“See you tomorrow, Saddddeeeeea.”

I waited until she went back into her bed and knocked her pillow on the floor.

“Tomorrow will be a no mistake day,” I whispered.

“Hey shut the fuck up or I’ll eat your fingers like chicken nuggets.”

For the first time in days, I laughed but quietly as not to disturb my roommate.