The Scream

The Scream August 4, 2008
I want to scream. I can feel it wound up too tight in my chest like a spring, set to snap with one more twist and I keep twisting and it doesn’t cut loose, it just winds around again, pushing harder on my breast bone. What does that say about me anymore? I wonder…
Walking through liquid walls into elaborate landscape deja-vu, looking for pieces of you, looking for blue feathers, butterflies and white rabbit tattoos, golden rings of promised things, arrows to the escape hatch, anything to cling to. The trees hang with unfinished dreams and schemes and plans, with undone Sugar Plum Fairies with hangovers and smokers coughs. All the little sparks from the fires in the wishing wells chase into the night in search of real air, in search of atmosphere enough to make them feel like they still sparkle. The moon has blushed at the mess.
The bread crumbs look like pieces of a skull and they don’t lead back home. How did I get so lost? The needle piercing the dark, taking all my breath with it. They don’t know what they’re doing. I can’t find your hand.
The room not white but grey, and too cool, at the back of the building, windowless, with all the charm of the mother ship. Even if I could get it out, no one would hear me scream.
The waiting room had been stained blue tapestry chairs, filled with other never theres, and it took every ounce of strength I’d had not to run. The ugly forest green carpet had been hiding land mines, I could hear them whispering, yes I could, and so I closed my eyes and hoped that I could still fly because it was my only hope of getting out of there alive.
I couldn’t take off. I needed rocket launching straight lift. I
couldn’t take the three step run. I hadn’t practiced getting airborne without it. Then I could feel it, a little trickle, slow and warm, down the inside of my shoulder blade, my broken wing. I’d been meaning to get that looked at too, after I had fallen in between that rock and the hard place.
I was emotionally crushed then for awhile by memories of having seen too much of my own blood pouring out of me, suffocated by a fear, not of death, but of leaving the people I loved before I’d had enough time with them, leaving them in this world without me, crushed by what it would do to them and what I would miss of their lives, all of the things I wouldn’t get to see and feel and know. Trapped then, by a feeling so close to insanity, biting my own tongue, the taste of liquid lead in my mouth as I endured it and broke free from the convulsion and begged, pleaded, for my life. Haunted then forever after, unable to clearly remember if I might have cut a deal…in my sleep?…for what? And with whom?
“You’re all done Sweetie. Just lay there for a minute. If you get up too fast you might feel dizzy, nauseas. When you feel okay you can sit up slow, get dressed and you are free to go. Your doctor will call you with the results. The area might feel tender or even bruised for a day or so, anything more than that and you should call your doctor. Okay?”
I want to renegotiate. Maybe, I’ll take it all back outright.

From my second book, THE VEIN