Asylum

The window in my room has a white frame. It has a metal latch in the middle and consists of eight sections of glass. To open it you have to slide the bottom section over the top. Of course, then there is the metal grille behind it. They put it there to stop jumpers. That's how it works here, no part of your life is left uncontrolled. My bed sits below the window. It has a metal frame and a springless mattress. The blue covers are coarse and hairy. The door is white. The door is always locked.

They put me here three years ago. I tried to kill myself when she left me. My whole life shattered in one moment. From then on I never bothered to switch on the lights, it was always dark anyway. I left off the heating because it never made a difference. You know when you sleep awkwardly on your arm and you wake up with pins and needles so bad you can't move it? Imagine that in your whole body.

I have a small hair clip. The ones ladies use to hold their hair back. I keep it hidden. I won't tell you where. Sometimes I sit on my bed and play with it. Snap, snap...snap, snap...snap, snap...snap, snap...snap, snap...snap, snap. I imagine it's me. I wish I were that simple. Snap...snap...open...close...on...off.

I've seen the sheets. The ones the doctors and the nurses keep about me. They think I'm crazy. They thing I'm wrong. But I think they're just scared. They have to call me mad...psychotic...because if I'm not an anomaly, if I'm not crazy, then they have to question themselves.