His
voice like an angel plays games with my head,
go
over the wall, he whispers.
nobody’s
looking or would ever expect a good boy like you to just split
So
I do, in the dark with my heart gearing up, sneak out of the white room in
silent white sneakers. Down the sanitized hall, passing open doorways like
animal dens, that’s what I’m thinking, all the creatures here caged in their
nightmares.
go
jamey go
To
the fire door exit.
shortest
distance between two points
Straight
line, here there inside out, across manicured grass and dormant flower beds
through thick trimmed hedges hiding the brick wall. Then jumping to grip
the concrete ledge so high above and pull myself up, a foot then a knee to the
top and fall over. Like a thrill ride almost, my stomach drops out in a
floating moment not knowing which way the ground is. Just, it’s too late to
turn back.
*
* * * *
Ruffling
sand out of my hair, my fingers like a comb untangle sleepknots and debris,
smoothing it down, hooking it so tidy behind my ears. Like that makes me look
all polite and presentable and not like a mental case who’d sleep on a beach,
or someone who can’t go home.
But
I can’t sleep here either. Heading down the beach instead, wandering south I
think along the gray shoreline. Moonlight makes the shadows silver, makes the
scattered shafts of driftwood eerie like skeletal limbs jutting out of the sand
pointing you out with a finger. So I’m trembling, wanting the warmth of the
morning to melt away these midnight chills and wrap me instead in the arms of
daylight. My clothes all like dewy and damp from the sleepless beach so I’m
walking faster, wishing the sunrise would hurry and finish. Touches of color
waking up now to what gets green and what gets blue, the rocky headland, the
forested ravine, the cliffs high above me lined with lakefront estates, all
exclusive and gated like private kingdoms or country clubs. Or adolescent
psychiatric facilities.
residents
only
I’m
guessing it’s just been an hour so far, that’s maybe five miles away and the day
hardly started. Follow the sidewalk through aging neighborhoods, crack after
crack these white canvas Keds like ghost feet light my way. Not stepping on
any, not even the natural cracks where the concrete’s buckled from the roots of
ancient trees with big sturdy branches they hang tire swings on, well, the dad
does. There’s screened porches with wooden steps that need painting and doors
that slam in their frames so loud the moms yell from the kitchens not to. They
have dogs that dig up the yards and live in the houses with dirt on their paws,
even upstairs. And delinquent kids, who you wouldn’t think your kids would hang
out with but they do.
