From The Drunken Canal - February 2022
YOU BELONG WITH ME
The day I found out that your girlfriend was dead, I made a plan. I decided to set off for the next world. Once I got there, I would find whoever was in charge and explain that there had been a mistake.Your girlfriend, who was young, and beautiful, and loved, was supposed to be alive. I, however, was more than ready to die. As proof I could offer both my recent journals and the contents of my stomach – Doxepin, Xanax, NyQuil, Klonopin, Johnnie Walker Red, etc. Clearly someone had made a disastrous clerical error. I should be dead, and she should be allowed to come home to you. In retrospect this was such a rich girl delusion. Hello, I would like to speak to the manager of Death Itself. But I was serious. I had the razor blade ready.
#
The hospital they sent me to was pretty bad. They put me in the personality disorders ward. One girl was so suicidal that she wasn’t even allowed a pillowcase. She spent most of her time praying, which depressed me. Like she was waiting for god to send her an email saying: I HAVE ABANDONED YOU. Patients who were particularly difficult – screaming, weeping etc., were sedated and placed in The Quiet Room. If we behaved, we were allowed outside for thirty minutes each day, under nurse supervision.
I called you once from the phone in the hallway, but because of the ECT I don’t remember what we spoke about.
Later, when I asked, you said: Oh, nothing much. Just like, small talk.
You fucking liar.
#
I was there for six weeks. I got ECT every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When they decided I was done, I went back to my parents’ house. I spent a month watching Criminal Minds and reading my high school poetry textbook. Then I got a job at a boutique that my mom’s friend had opened with the money from her divorce, selling ugly jewelry to other divorced women. During lunch breaks, I slept in my car. I called to wish you happy birthday.
You said: I’m glad to hear you’re doing better.
Even though I didn’t actually say that.
My therapist told me: you have so much love to give to a person who actually wants to receive it!
But I knew that wasn’t really true. This love was all yours – hand-crafted, non-refundable, indestructible.
#
On the way to the hospital, the ambulance drivers strapped me down to the gurney. You don’t have to do that, I told them. I’m just sad. I’m not crazy.I couldn’t move at all, and I was trying not freak out about it so I asked if they would turn on the radio. The song that came on was a girl begging someone to love her, but in a cheerful and catchy way. The station played that same song two more times before we got to the hospital. It was around midnight.
Wow, I said. This place looks haunted as shit.
The guy who had strapped me down was like, Yeah, good luck.
A nurse came out with a wheelchair. I didn’t think I needed it, but I was so tired that I fell asleep while they delivered me to my room.
I can’t remember what that song was. I can’t even remember any of the lyrics to look it up. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe if I heard it again, I would really go insane.