Bell

I am afraid of nearly everything, the louder whispers of the library, things that go bump in the road, gas cans, can rims. staff infection, spiders and their unhatched issue, meningitis. I am afraid of needles to the spine, the hospital kind, and of schizophrenia, alzheimers, and to a lesser degree, epilepsy. I am afraid of going crazy, or am crazy with fear. I had not drunk tea in days, it seemed strange, to have not-- until this morning we woke and it was "light out," but not light, there was no slight sun, but rain and rain. And I made a pot of tea called "Russian Caravan" tea because it tastes of burnt Siberian forests, and I gave him the deeper cup because I only trust myself not to spill on my pretty bedding, the sheets of which, by the way, are smeared now with the things that leak out of your skin when you are tattooed. Things like "ink" "blood" and "plasma". He is as warm as socks and his feet sometimes function as socks for my arches, when we lay that way. He put his hands on my neck, he meant nothing by it, I know, but I had to shake my head, say no, tears starred my eyes and my throat wrapped around a heavy stone and I remembered something that I am.

Sometimes a pressure builds in my head, one which needs to be let, needs freely to ache in the opened-wound way. And I feel like the little boy in "The Polar Express" when he realizes that his bell is gone and that there is a hole in his pocket. One he may even forget about, the better to lose other things.