Sick

“You know what happened.” Familiar voice says accusatorily, spitting it at me. I stare absent-mindedly at the dull yellow walls covered in ornate silk fabrics. A mildly stress-inducing attempt to mimic comfort. Distracted now, pull my attention back to the singular pillow beneath me and the bright, warm lamp shining in my direction like a spotlight. Feels punitive. 

 

“I don’t,” I say. Room spinning. Lip licking. I wipe my damp palms on my jeans and notice it’s nauseatingly hot. Stare at the blank walls again, the oranges and reds of light blending around the room, drawing attention to the cool shimmery purple of her skirt. 

 

“You’re sick. This careless attitude is making you sick.” I am sick. Won’t admit that. My hands tremble in my lap, and I start to feel that pulverization beneath the sternum. The tender tightness that tells you there’s nothing you can do about it. The bad news feeling. Foreboding feeling. Glass smashes in my head, noiseless but still arousing in me, fear and a flinch. 

 

“I don’t remember.” Choking and stuttering. Dichotomous with the indignantly sonorous voice across from me. Watch her tongue search her mouth in frustration. Careless, yes. Sick, maybe. Imprudence encapsulated as I flip through thoughts like I’m trying to find the perfect song. I just move. That’s all. It’s thoughtless, really and faultless I feel, in this exhaustless imagination. Godless, I know, and sick. She’s right. Glass smashing again, and my own voice, yelling, inaudible in a quiet kitchen. All I can make out is the hum of appliances. Eyes shut tight. Can’t quite reach. 

 

“You’ve been really careless, you know. Care is the most important thing here. ” Bold claim considering her lack of exposure, anticipating combustion at the sight of me, living comfortably. She doesn’t know I dug this shirt out of my dirty laundry. Doesn’t know I left juice dripping after a night of drinking. Calls me careless as a cause for concern. Does this on purpose, I suppose. Superficial care and a lack of attentiveness toward my successes. Angry now. Remembering the nightmare as merely that. Tightened stomach and a cave in the chest, almost livable. 

 

“I don’t think I have, and… I think intent is more important than care.” Growing agitated. Lack of understanding, a mutual lack. A mutual misunderstanding disguised as misdirection on my part.  

 

“I can’t help you with this. Don’t you feel sick? You need to care.” I care. Notice the scarred hands resting on her lap, and I can picture them now, bloody. Swallow hard, almost painful. Look back up at her imploringly. I care.

 

“Please? I care. I promise, I’d cut off my pinky for you, I’m just trying to say that I didn’t mean it.” Picture my own hands now. Bloody, like hers. Alien. As if they don’t quite belong to me. Wanting something else, something more. Anxiety eats away at its own hunger inside of me. Becoming itself as I take memories from beneath the earth’s surface and let them coalesce with my own. 

 

“You’re sick, don’t you feel sick? I can’t be there to help you piece things together anymore.” 

She’s the sick one. Perfidious. Placing the blame on me. Convincing me I’m in the wrong.

 

“Why?” I say with earnest curiosity. 

 

“I’m tired.” She draws out the words as if she’s too exhausted to finish saying them. I’m tired too. Of this sub-human desire toward servility. Big brown eyes on a permanently victimized face urge me into resolution once again. 

 

“That’s it? Just tell me what I did, and I can make it up to you. I think.” How come I embody corruption when I’ve learned everything from her? Softness kills insolence, I guess. Roughness becomes despotic, I guess. Tangible flash of this maudlin memory. Scented, almost. Soft cotton fabrics billow. Rubbing alcohol masked with cheap vanilla, and something almost metallic underneath it all. 

 

“It’s not what you did, it’s what you said.” Comprehension undressing itself. Short temper mixed with sensitivity. A Leo and a Pisces. 

 

“Whatever I said, I probably didn’t mean it.” I meant it, I think.

 

“No! It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it. Do you remember nothing? God, you’re sick. You don’t care at all.” Unreliable. Too focused on the wrongness, the gloominess, to notice that the painfulness is personal. Changes the narrative. Changes her mind as she pleases. Says it’s always been that way. 

 

“How did I say it?” Humour her. Remembering an argument now. The glass breaking, the cuts on the hands, the yelling. Not the first time.

 

“You know how you said it.” Her magnum opus is her own hurt feelings. Fixing things. Fictitious fights always one-sided and felt only when her sights are set on new advancements. Failure to feel almost worse than feeling too much and lashing out. 

 

“With care?” I ask, teasing. 

 

“Try again.” She says, seething. 

 

“With intent,” I say with an exhale. Onslaught of old feelings bubbling up toward the mouth. The buried deep kind. The burning kind. 

 

“You’re sick… and cruel! And those are the worst things you can be here.” Like a defenceless child when hurt, she resorts to asinine name-calling and absurd accusations. Screaming without any sound. Crying without any tears leaving the eyes. I meant what I said. I meant what I said. 

 

“Well, you’re unreliable. You don’t know what you want, you have no intent.” Tasting the blood now, I know it wasn’t me. Sickness comes predetermined when you’re locked up. Lacking vitamin D and the opportunity to exercise a sound state of mind. 

 

“No intent is better than cruel intent.” Nearly yelling at me. Remember it all now. Truth isn’t cruel, and neither is my pensive attitude or my aversion to unnecessary resolution. I believe in simplifying. She amplifies, multiplies. Her feelings materialize in front of you like walking through a thick fog. Untouchable but still profoundly felt. Still bone-chilling and damp. Oscillation of tacit judgement and expected compromise. She preys on her own negativity, keeping a firm hand on her chest.

 

“I guess… and maybe no care is better than unreliable care.” I meant it. 

 

“Do you remember now? Do you feel sick?” I won’t tell her what I know. I won’t tell her she’s the sick one. That her calculated portrayal of a damsel in distress does nothing but dull her down. Dramatic, watery girl with tears in her eyes and an ocean inside of her. The salt pricks my skin as I swim, but it’s the only way out. 

 

“I am sick, you know that.” Lying through my big teeth, the cycle repeats. Eggshell dancing. Gentle, calculated steps as she does what she pleases. Disguising her argumentative nature with a theatrical impression of a sage, secretly guiding all her followers to perdition. 

 

“I know that.” Failure to terminate. Immediate melting, I feel. Feeling my feet against the wood floor as I stare at the stiff pillow I’m sitting on. Shift my attention back to the tapestries, moving so softly, wishing I could be hung up there among them. Back to the bright sunny light, shining interrogatively. And back to her, in her long purple skirt, looking like I just broke her heart and put it back together in front of her. But I choose my fate, looping myself into perverse coddling and making myself sick with it. Sick with meaning. Sick and tired.