Before physician narratives came patient narratives

Words may not seem what they seem to mean.

The first German word I had an emotional attachment with was Der Ziegelstein.
All of these boys want to build cities, up and across. Millions of bricks appear in their
imaginations. And here I am: the bricklayer.

This painting is about a finger nail clipping behind a bed and is not about any of my romantic
relationships current or past.

Last night before going to bed, she looked behind the bed.

She found it.

T.B wanted something from her that she couldn’t give him and I’m sure neither of them even
knew what that was, or, at least she didn’t. T.B was obsessed with her and had this idea of
them. She thought T.B wanted to put her in a cage. It was like her stuff and T.B’s stuff and then
it became just her stuff and she didn’t care about this stuff at all. She realized she didn’t even
care about him or his shit.

They were married in their minds but separated by an earthly distance that looked but did not
necessarily feel like a salty puddle inside of her shoes. The wave kept falling over her head and
she couldn’t get up but could breathe and T.B duck dived, yawning. Literally, she felt nothing.
Like, if he died it wouldn’t matter. But sometimes she was drowning and could actually taste salt
water in her mouth when it happened.

She just wanted him gone. She wanted him away from her because T.B was like this skin she
needed to shed. She had grown out of him and it’s awful to say (I know) because she had loved
T.B so much for so long but it just had to happen. It was like that skin she had shed gathered
itself up and started coming after her.
She did not apologize.

There’s no point in trying to piece it together because I just have absolutely no recollection. I
didn’t even really drink that much but I suppose in my conscious effort to find respite from my
life with a few drinks I ended up losing any semblance of consciousness altogether. The last
thing I remember was all of us getting into a cab on our way out from that first bar. I can vaguely
make out an image of someone peeing in an alley. Was it me? Was I crying? How did so many
hours pass with me so drunk that I basically wasn’t even there? Who was that person walking
around in my body? Buying all the drinks with my money. Cracking all the jokes with my friends.
I don’t think it was me in there because I feel like I would’ve taken my pants off before I got into
bed. I would’ve turned off all the lights and for sure would have shut the front door. It would’ve
been nice if this person could’ve at least brushed my teeth.