She sits alone in her room,
typing on her laptop,
trying to push the world away.
But it has leaked into her fantasies,
And refuses to leave.
She trembles like a leaf,
She can't stop moving,
Must be the ADHD to blame.
After all, they never gave her medicine.
She plays with her hair,
She picks at her skin,
She cracks all her knuckles,
She just feels so
insecure.
So trapped.
She picks up a pen and tries to write,
just like in the old days,
When her stories were her escape.
But the words don't flow like they used to.
She doesn't know what to say or how to say it.
All she gets are crossed out sentences and crumpled pages.
She tries to smile,
She tries to laugh,
Skipping around like a child and humming tuneless songs.
She's eighteen,
but a little lost eight-year-old is sneaking out.
She's so scared.
Maybe staying occupied will help.
After all, that's what Mommy does.
She does her chores,
without even being told,
Taking that extra mile—
scrubbing the bathtub two or three times,
cleaning the sink until it shines,
Not even retching when she cleans the toilet.
But the voices won't go away.
You're horrible, says one,
You're beautiful, says another,
You're a worthless piece of shit, says the first,
You're a perfect angel, says the second,
If you leave, you're damned, says Silvertongue,
You need to get out, it's not safe, says Mr. Scarecrow
And the whole time, images flash in her head
As her imagination runs away
and makes up all these conflicting scenarios that drive her insane.
She tries to pray,
but she can't even form a coherent thought.
Her heart is being pulled in two different directions,
She is unsure about both, positive about neither,
And since her image of God has been smeared and distorted,
it seems like He's not answering.
He won't tell her what to do.
She can't even cry.
She doesn't know what to do.
She sits in her room on the floor,
writing this poem
hoping something will start to make sense. . .
I need out. . .
YOU ARE READING
The Art of Confusion
PoetryDiana Miller is schizophrenic...or at least she thinks so. She has never been clinically diagnosed because her father believes that mental illness is demon possession, and she knows he would never take her to a psychiatrist. To cope with her inner c...
