Aimless Day

Aimless Day
Pirjo Zeylon

My mind spreads its spikes at dawn like a hedgehog preparing for a fox attack.

This morning’s hangover has nothing to do with alcohol. The poison is my mind wanting me to be something that I am not.

I stare at him and wonder what he is thinking. I want to melt right through his skin, invade every pore, and eat his thoughts for breakfast.

When I take off my glasses he says I look lost, vulnerable.

A world lies embedded between my computer keys made of bread crumbs, a micro world unaware of me.

The Arabic pizza baker raises his eyebrows and tells me I’m getting smaller.

The annoying fragility of this plastic life shows when the hungry ATM eats my credit card.

I sit on a fence at the top of the hill catching my breath. When a police officer asks me what my story is, I stare at him.

My ninety-seven year old neighbor is cleaning her house and running errands. She is moving to Thailand tomorrow to start a new life. I wish I were her.

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Pirjo Zeylon is a writer and artist who lives and writes in southern Sweden. She is fluent in Swedish, Finnish and English. Pirjo is currently working on a novel that she hopes will be published before she reaches 50.  When she is not writing Pirjo works in the field of logistics.

Contact: pirjoz@yahoo.com

Image: Aimless Day, By Pirjo Zeylon

Eggshells

Eggshells
Michelle Bidwell

You’re sitting on a stained white couch, the cushions so soft you worry you won’t be able to stand back up with any kind of grace. You want to grab one of the throw pillows and hug it to yourself for comfort but wonder if that would make you look needy or neurotic or whatever it is your body language will say. So you sit up as straight as you can on the squishy sofa and refuse to let your arms cross in self defense.

The therapist might be a little older than you. It’s hard to say. High desert climate isn’t kind to skin. You’re glad you haven’t lived here all your life and feel desperate to leave before your own skin turns to leather. You like her jeans, her shoes, and her trendy glasses. And then she tells the two of you that your daughter is exhibiting signs of BPD. Borderline Personality Disorder. You reach for your husband’s hand. Your fingers entwine with familiar ease. It’s not that you didn’t already know.

When she tells you that your daughter is terrified of being just like her biological mother you squirm. Your husband says, If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. You stare at the floor to hide your Picasso face, one eye filled with amusement, the other with outrage. If you had three eyes, the third would be a fresco of sadness.

The therapist isn’t big on labeling. You aren’t in love with it either, but if it walks like a duck. Your feathered daughter is a master at projection and manipulating the truth. She lives in a black and white world, is impulsive, violent, self-destructive, histrionic and narcissistic.

You leave the counseling session and drive straight to the bookstore. You love the bookstore and you find yourself relaxing, wandering around, even after you find the book you are looking for. You buy your daughter a present, a henna tattoo kit. It looks fun. Maybe she can draw on herself rather than cut herself.

It takes only five of the nine behaviors for a BPD diagnosis. She somehow exhibits all nine daily. You read on and begin to wonder if your ex-husband was a BPD. That would explain a lot.

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Michelle Bidwell lives in rural Idaho and works as a Field Interviewer for Research Triangle Institute. She is a longstanding member of the Diving Deeper Writing Workshop. She loves to read, write, garden, and hang out with her dogs. Michelle is a mother of five and very proud grandmother of three.

Image: Reflections and Light, By Stephen Martin

Ear, Nose and Throat

 

Ear, Nose and Throat
Jennifer Sulkow

You come into the room and sit in the chair, sometimes the chair you are supposed to sit on, sometimes my chair and I have to ask you to move. You have your purse on your lap. Why do you have it on your lap? Why don’t you put it over there on the chair? I ask you a question. You answer a different question that I did not ask. I ask how long and you say a long time. Yes, but how long exactly? You keep talking and I cannot get a word in edgewise. I sigh and listen and try to take control of the situation. I give up and get up and start to look you over. I try to look in your ear. You pull away. You cringe and tense up. I sit down. I am just going to look in your nose now. No, don’t lean back. Just keep your head still. I hold your head with my hand. You scrunch up your face. No, relax your face. That is it. You are doing fine. I feel your neck. You are okay with that.  Open your mouth. Put your tongue back in. Relax your tongue. Breathe through your mouth like a puppy.  Say ahh. Oh, you have something in your mouth.  Could you spit that out? Thank you.

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Jennifer Sulkow is a Physician Assistant in upstate New York. She is a member of the Diving Deeper Writing Workshop.

Image: Anna, Harbin Hot Springs, By Sandra Jensen