Homecoming

My little yellow car comes home. A man with a round belly in a tight, red polo shirt and a puffing smile lowers her from the back of a large truck, a grumbling but good-natured commentary his soundtrack. As he hands over the keys he asks me if I've broken a window recently. 'No.' I reply, puzzled. He thinks for a moment and then asks me if I use a lot of glitter. What can I answer but 'yes'? Giggling, I tell him he should see my bath, and go on to explain that I'm a performer. He looks pleased that the mystery has been solved, hands me paperwork and climbs back in the truck. I'm still laughing.

Moody Cow

The house is so quiet I can hear my heart beat. It's the dead of night. Insomnia and the maelstrom in my head rage on and I stare into the darkness, unseeing, numb. How can I explain the pain, the guilt, the confusion and the despair of this illness? How can someone ever truly understand? How can I be anything but alone with this affliction? I am angry with him for judging me. I am angry with him for refusing to open his mind. I am angry with him for telling me what is and isn't part of this horrible disease and that the rest is an excuse, a self-indulgent failure to take responsibility and choose to be well, choose to behave in a manner he finds acceptable. It feels so unjust and so futile.

The headache reminds me of its presence, sticking knitting needles into my eye sockets. I am cold amidst the tumbling words the jumbled thoughts, the wasted sentences I want to write to him but won't send because he's already told me he won't read them. I need to sleep. But I can't. I need to eat. But I can't. I need to connect. But I can't. The prison walls are up again and locked in the cell of my sickness I can only endure. Alone.