I’m listening to trains pass the busway. It’s a twenty-minute walk, almost, from here to there, my bedroom to the gravel and tracks. The locomotives thunder at the speed of snails toward the city. It is just after two in the morning (02:08, if I’m being precise) and I am thinking of you. There is a train whistle, two short shouts, a pause, then one long bellow. Silence. Never mind.

I would love to wake up in your arms. Another whistle, long and then longer. Sorry for the cliche; here's another. You said I didn’t do anything wrong, that I was wonderful, that it was you and not me. I know what your mouth said and I know what your body said, I know what my mouth said and I know what my brain wanted to say. Four long whistles now. Louder. I wanted to hold you in the garden when you were shaking like a leaf, fear in your eyes, words coming from your lips like a rake dragging through the autumn yard. I’ve never seen you anything but confident before, I wanted to say that, so how much does this hurt you? I am nauseous with sleep.

I don’t know what to say anymore except I love you I love you I love you on repeat like a broken record playing the same, sad breakup song. Here we are, you are safe here, I am your darling love and you are my dearest wonder and you know what they say if at first you don’t succeed, then the fear of the unknown eats you alive. I am nauseous with the thought of your sweet nothings echoing in my ears. Never mind.

You wore black that night, the night we went into the Campo and stood on its curve, playing hopscotch with the numbers and watching the blue wall watch over the place, the shrubbery and the sculpture, the two young women confused and smothering their emotions alive. I watched you play hopscotch with the even numbers. It was like we were living outside of ourselves: we existed in the blurry lines between Oakland and Squirrel Hill and that was fine enough. We didn’t exist in the city, we were never there, we were never in the countless auditoriums and theatres, and we were never in the bar two days after they tried to kill you on that rainy Saturday morning, the bar where you cried in my arms. I cradled you like a child, like the one I loved more than any other living being because it was true, then. I can still hear the ambulances whip down and past my street. The full-throated song of a passing freight train brings me back here, back to now, and I’m not quite sure this is better.

Overseeing the Campo, Wittgenstein burned the wall in a heavy Arial. You stopped hopscotching and the silence made me insecure. The air was colder than I wanted it to be. I took a breath. I started reading, right to left and bottom to top:

What Eddington says about “the direction of time” and the law of entropy comes to this:

time would change its direction if men should start walking backwards one day.

You were looking at me then.

Of course you can call it that if you like; but then you should be clear in your mind that you

have said no more than that people have changed the direction they walk in.

There was nothing more for me to read, and you were silent. I felt like I was being electrocuted, and I stared toward the sky. I counted the stars as flecks and bet against light pollution. I did not have the upper hand; I lost count after eighteen.

When a person falls in love, their pupils dilate due to norepinephrine, oxytocin, and dopamine. This is known as mydriasis. I’ve always loved the human eye, its display and portrayal of emotions is infallible. Yours are a sea green, flecks of gold and shimmering seafoam on the iris. I would keep a mental report of what your pupils did. I’ve since thrown it away. It’s not you it's really not, it’s me, I promise. Never mind.

That was a cool Wednesday in April. On Saturday, I reeked of smoke and cheap alcohol. Sitting perennially downwind of a bonfire, I was famished, intoxicated, picked and eaten by a woman whose face reminded me of yours. She ate from 04:38 to 04:51 and I pictured you the entire time. I saw you, in the wood smoke, in the long red hair and freckles marking the space between my stretch marks. I almost called out to you. There is still an indent in my tongue, the muted letters of your name hiding in its crevices.

After she finished, I was held in an awkward fashion - a human teddy bear - and hands were run through my hair. You bubbled up in my throat again, alongside bitter acid in my sublingual glands. I woke the next morning to unfamiliar sights and smells, on a map that wasn’t mine. My eyes could not adjust to the curtain-diffused light; my pupils broke somewhere between the Campo and this bed.

That Wednesday night, yours were pinpoints. Myosis, in fact: the antonym to mydriasis. The ambient sounds of the neighbourhood were eaten by the fauna surrounding us. We stared at each other, and you took a step back from me. Neither of us knew what to do next. Your eyes were wet then, deflated, and you took a deep breath. A train whistled through Panther Hollow, and I felt thunder roar inside me. I walked the thirty-five minutes home, past the train tracks and the busway, crying almost hysterically, alone.

Four months ago, you moved twelve hours away by car. I saw you the day before, I said goodbye, but I could not say I love you. I nearly cried as I left your stoop. You said you’d call. Four months and eleven days, one phone call. You told me about your high-rise job in the big city, about the ferry you take twice a day to the island and home again, about how lately you’ve been leaving after dark and the city lights make you think of me.

I asked if you could count the stars, and you said no. Never mind. Do you walk backwards sometimes? No. Never mind.

The train has passed, and I continue to lay, recalling the nights we spent here. I stood from bed, sloughing bedcovers off me, and I walked to the middle of the elongated room. Slowly, I began to turn in circles counterclockwise. The earth wobbled, and then tilted as I moved faster. And I moved like this, I moved against the clocks until I lost my balance and fell.

The floor opened up, and I am here now.

Two miniscule scabs on the upper chest, near my shoulder joints on both sides, indicate a paravertebral nerve block. This would explain why I couldn’t feel my chest, torso, or either arm. I came out of the anesthesia in a fog, a nurse sitting at the end of my bed smiled at me.

“Are my teeth blue?” she asked. The nurse, whose name I either wasn’t given or forgot entirely, displayed teeth that looked an icy blue, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the light or if her teeth were actually blue. I had been conscious for approximately forty seconds. There was an awkward ache in my chest, something cold. I debated bringing this up to the woman.

“I-I’m sorry?” I was groggy and couldn’t feel anything. I was sipping ginger ale from a can through a straw and have no recollection as to either how it was placed in my hand or where it came from.

“I just had a blue raspberry slushie. Wanted to make sure my teeth weren’t blue.” She smiled again, okay, her teeth were definitely blue, probably, the room was darker than I expected it would be. She stood up. “Great, you’re awake, that’s step one.”

“Step one?”

She gestured to a checklist on the wall. "Five steps here. Step one, wake up. Step two, drink at least six ounces of a liquid and keep it down." She gestured to the soda can I was holding. "And it looks like you're doing a pretty good job so far. Three, stand up out of bed. Four, take a short walk. Five is just getting your discharge paperwork. So you're twenty percent of the way there." The blue-toothed nurse checked off the first box, then turned to face me. "Do you need anything?"

"I had some friends who came with, I don't know where they've gone."

"Oh. I'm sure they're at the cafeteria or something. Try not to worry too much, I'm sure they'll be back." She headed for the doorway, covered by a curtain whose numerous designs were bordering on the obnoxious. "Just press your call button if you need anything." The nurse flitted through the doorway, curtain barely waving in her wake.

And then I was alone, surrounded by the sounds of medical equipment, the constant announcement of an EKG, and scurrying nurses and doctors on the other side of the doorway. Not much to do other than lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to fall back asleep. Turns out, it's much easier to do that when you've got lidocaine, fentanyl, and propofol all in your bloodstream. I was shivering - this is commonplace after being under anesthesia - and I was having trouble moving my arms.

I could overhear a nurse at the centre station talking on the phone. Someone had a surgery scheduled for eight o'clock the next morning, so they had to be at the hospital by six. I was not envious of their timetable. I tried to orient myself in the room, which was arranged as such: directly in front of me, an off-white curtain hung from the ceiling with multicoloured blocks and rectangles covering it from ceiling to floor. It was unappealing and filled me with an irrational anger the longer I looked at it. On the hallway side of the curtain was a doorway with two glass doors at opposite ends; they could close in the centre if needed but were opened to allow for ease of access. There was a single bar of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, running from the doorway back to the wall behind me, flanked by recessed bulbs mirroring the fluorescents. The recessed lights were on, thankfully; I have a minor abhorrence for fluorsecent lighting and at any rate it would probably have made me ill. A television on the wall to my right; it was on some sort of telescoping arm, but I didn't bother with it much. Never been one for television. A stock photo of a beach, framed at the centre of the right wall. My bed was in the centre of the room, headboard close to the wall behind me, two long and narrow windows flanking me. Various medical equipment sat behind me: the aforementioned EKG machine, anesthesia machinery, to be perfectly honest I wasn't totally sure what was there as I didn't have the energy to move my head and torso to get a good look. To my left: a door, theoretically leading to a bathroom, and the checklist that would determine how long I was planted in this manner. Still no sight, or sound, of my platonic caretakers. Where was the cafeteria in this hospital anyway?

I never was a fan of hospitals. My father died in one, decades ago, and alone, the victim of cancer treatment. He had gone under the knife to remove cancerous tumours from his throat and neck and, while the surgery was a success, the treatments caused his carotid artery to weaken and, ultimately, burst. That can lend itself to a somewhat irrational fear in a healthy young woman that she will die in similar fashion. I could feel the walls closing in, and it was harder to breathe. I felt the ginger ale bubble up to the back of my throat and tried to swallow it down. I couldn't hear the EKG, but I felt my pulse throughout my body. Fingertips, toes, a throbbing headache, and in each incision on my chest. I felt sick, and reached for the paddle to my right that had a large red button at the end, trying to signal for a nurse, blue-toothed or otherwise. No responding light, vibration, or sound, so I pressed it again. And again. I pulled on the paddle, and it jumped into the air, an errant plug flying at the end, landing with a sharp thump on the freshly-stitched incision on the left side of my chest. I cried out, but no one came. The bed suddenly became hard, every movement accosted by sharp needles. I pulled on the call paddle by the plug, pulled it off of me, pulled it toward the bedrail, and let it clatter to the floor. Staff and patients would pass in the hallway every few minutes, yet none of them stopped. I felt my limbs grow heavy, body still throbbing with pain, and let my head roll back, falling asleep.

I came to some hours later, no one in the room. The check on the board had been erased, and the recessed lights were brighter. It was dark outside, and still no one had come to see me. The plug of the call paddle was caught in the bedrail; I pulled on it, pulling the paddle into bed, and then threw it at the curtain. It disappeared through the fabric and made contact with either a cart or the opposing wall, a dull thud against an impenetrable object. A hand threw back the curtain, and the formerly blue-toothed nurse came back in.

"You're still here?"

"I'd like to go home."

"You can't leave until all of these checkmarks are gone."

"Two of those should be gone, technically."

"You fell back asleep."

"I couldn't get in touch with anyone. What time is it?"

"About nine-thirty."

"Did my friends ever show up?"

"What are their names?"

"Loreli and Sam."

"Oh. They came back, yeah, stayed for a few hours. Must have left not too long ago."

"They left?"

"I suppose so."

"Can I call them?"

"Do you have a phone?"

"I thought I left it with one of them."

"It might be best for you to stay the night, then."

"But how will I know when they come back?"

"If they come back, we'll send them to your room."

"I'd really like to be able to make a phone call."

"You can't even keep yourself awake. When you can keep yourself awake, we can start the process again, and then maybe you can call someone."

"Can you stay with me, at least?"

"There are other patients in recovery, I'm sorry."

"I really don't like being in hospitals alone. I thought they would have stayed."

"I guess they had to go home."

"Please?"

"I can't, I'm sorry. There's a television in the corner to keep you company."

I looked at the nurse. Her smile had gone. She seemed stern-faced, thin-lipped. "Okay."

"Just call if you need anything," she said, turning to the curtain.

"The call button doesn't work."

"The nurses' station is just across the hall."

"Okay."

"When you can walk to the nurses' station, we'll get some of those checkboxes filled, okay?"

"Okay." I was looking at the ceiling, trying not to cry. Spending the night, alone, in a hospital did not quite fill me with joy. "Can I get some water, at least?"

"I'll have someone bring you some water, sure."

"Okay." She started to walk through the curtain. "Thank you," I uttered, voice barely above a whisper. The nurse had disappeared, lights dimming as she left. All that remained was the light diffused by the curtain, casting a sickly warm glow in the room. My stomach flipped again, and my palms became sweaty. I cried out, hoping someone would hear. But no one came.

I continued to cry, and no one continued to come.

I

I'll take the brain zaps

and the dizzy spells too, just

to never go back;

II

the ball and chain of

this little white pill removed!

Sunlight shines brighter.

III

A week afterward:

life is clear as shattered glass;

watch for the pieces

IV

symptoms of withdrawal

mirror the disease - neither

up nor down are known.

V

Is it better to

feel the raindrops on the face

than feet in the mud?

I went to you, down there

I went to you and 

felt no regrets

in going or staying

but in leaving

I felt guilt rise in me

like the Black Warrior River holding me under

the waves never sank down

and when you left me

they only rose higher still

until I saw the top of Vulcan's headsink slowly into the sickly-black waters

Every time I look into your eyes

I find myself trailing off mid-sentence because

I am more captivated by the dilation of your

gunmetal-grey eyes and how they match

your white-and-grey pinstripe button-up

and those off-black corduroy leggings you wear

than by the small talk we make

I'd rather we make love than idle chitchat

but perhaps that's too abrasive or contorted

for either of our fledgling advances to handle

because honey I can tell when I'm flirting with a girl

but I can't tell when she's flirting back

but in your case it's as subtle as a forest fire

if you were standing any closer to me

we'd be sharing the same hot-red Vans

and I don't think you're my shoe size baby

one thing's for sure

my red Vans and your black corduroys would look

picture-perfect on the floor of your bedroom

lumped together with the gentle care of a ten-car pile up

and bearing the weight of a thousand brightly-burning evergreens

we could cause enough friction to render this entire state ablaze

and give ole Smokey a good run for his fire-retarded money

and never stop until we ignite the entire world

or ignite a fire in one another's hearts

whichever comes first

whichever dies out last

you left,

torching every single bridge;

their shadows

still

ablaze.

The newspaper this morning

said in the headline

Woman tells police she set Homewood blaze

because home ‘filled with demons’

I read the article from top to bottom

above and below the fold

because the headline doesn't tell the woman's view

it tells a distorted tale

it sells an inflated rail

against another sick soul

don't think the person

who sets their demons on fire

is insane simply because

they've found a way to burn their bridges

while ours are still standing

and weighed down from gridlock with evil spirits

and yes I know the woman murdered three people in the process

three people who didn't deserve to die

and yes she was sick

and yes they were kind

and yes it was wrong

but let me tell you

if burning down a house would get rid of my demons

I would make the Great Fire of Chicago

look like nothing in comparison

because I have tried every remedy

I have tried drowning them

I have tried outrunning them

I have tried killing them

and they still swim

they still run

they still live

they still live

and the city is on fire anyway

so what does one more house matter?