Part 24 (1/2)
I say, What's not to like? They're nothing if not nice
You're like those people who fall in love with their kidnappers, Pam says Like what's-her-name Who held up the bank The rich bitch
Betty says, Patty Hearst
How many suicide attempts does everybody have? Tina blurts out I have unlucky thirteen
People go around with their various numbers
I have only about half of one, I say
You're bullshi+tting in Mary here, Pam says One half-assed attempt Well, I can beat that weak-assed shi+t I have zero There are soh
On the way back to the ward, Paot some contraband
Tell me it's chocolate, I say, for that day's brownies had vanished from the ward kitchen
Better than that, she says, and she draws frohter Then she whispers, I've also got a lightbulb in my room
What fun we're ure out, but I'h to let the opaque opportunity slide
33
Waking in the Blue We are all old ti in the Blue”
Three weeks after the la in the sunlit hall of that asyluests I include reen happy slippers, I' a poem about a particular circle of hell in which a sinner is fixed on endless video reruns of her every screwup An eternity of reruns with eyelids held open by clothespins Crucifixion by television
Which is how the end of , and there was nothing much else to aspire to It's a crappy poem based on an old idea, but I haven't written in nine oal being to get through without having to trek to the nurses' station to borrohite-out, which erous? I ask Mary after my next typo
People find creative ways to hurt themselves, she says
Do I look like I wanna hurt myself? I breathe frost on theand inscribe my initials with a little heart
You're not the only one on the ward, she says It pleases e, when I was a sobbing wreck teeks before
I'd guard it from the other madwomen with my life, I say
She looks around to be sure the other nurses are still doling outto read your poems, in case they're bad for your mental health
She can't do that, I say All kinds of poets wrote here-Anne sexton, Robert Lowell
She can, I' a look of concern that unsettles o ho full-tiet to decide, she says
C'mon, Mary
Another nurse steps into the roo dropped off for ure But the return address holds the scarlet shi+eld of Radcliffe College-the Bunting Institute for wo to reiterate my rejection, I tell Mary, since the year before I'd applied-for the ninth time-for one of their fanciest postdoctoral fellowshi+ps They gave you money and an office Because my acadenorable I'd never expected to get it
But one poet had decided not to coift that I understand fully as such Rather than feel the button-busting pride I've been chasing with a decade of arrogantly filled-out grant applications, I feel toadishly unworthy Mary reads over the letter while I stand stumped in the shi+ne of it
They make you an officer of the university, she says What's that e drinks at the Faculty Club
Drinks?
Club soda and coffee, I say OJ Iced tea
She's still rubbing her belly with a pinched look on her face She hands ?
That says you have to go to a o It's an all-day orientation
I know, I know I get keys to et to meet the other scholars I can't wait
She'll never let you go, she says, referring to my in-house shrink: Alice in Wonderland That's what even the nurses call her behind her back, based on the platinu on the far side of forty It flaps behind her like a shi+p's wake, or she pushes it back using horrid headbands with bows big enough to stick on a birthday convertible (My doc was on August holiday, or she o to the drunks' group in the detox on Tuesday Escorted
Won't I be out by then?
Mary shrugs, adding, Maybe not
Alice in fucking Wonderland, I say
A passing doctor hushes me and nods toward the mailroom, where the shrink in question-tiny, hu charts
It's such a cliche to hate your shrink when you're in the bin (In truth, all ofa buried hatred of my own seductive, narcissistic mother But even other doctors seeroup, and her lack of huend in these halls No one ever sees her pancaked face risk the breach of s
She beckons me now, and I summon the bravado to flounce behind her to an office She slips behind her desk She's wearing a peach-colored headband to match her Chanel suit She's a buyer of na primly in the chair across from her, I try to dazzle her withup penis envy every session, and I swear that this ti for a dick of my own, for in most places that pretend to value honesty, I've usually found that sucking up is an underrated virtue given hoell it works
Reviewing my chart, she squirts a dollop of lotion into her hands and rubs theether with the untroubled air of a woone to sleep without flossing
She says, You're still refusing the sleepingso well, I say I think all our talks are paying off
What's your objection to the medication?
I'm worried about the side effects