mouth sores that, at that time, were the worst thing I’d endured. Before my relapse, I would often wake up with a phantom aching throat.
I chose the moderate sedation as opposed to deeper sleep because I could still move my arms and legs a little. Several times a day, a PT came and made me exercise, which cut down on the muscle loss. I dropped twenty-seven pounds my twelve days in the ICU, and since then, have tried hard to gain them back.
I do what I’m supposed to do, since I got discharged last week. Eat, sleep, lift weights, run on the treadmill in the living room. I have doctor’s appointments constantly. I have a personal shopper, because I can’t really leave this space without risking an illness. Sometime in the next six months, that should get better.
After my breathing treatment, I lay down on my back and read a few unfolded sparrows. Even though they’re worn and ragged now, I still think of the sheets of paper as sparrows.
I read through them all two times before I curl on my side and lift out the one I’m reading most often right now. It’s a poem called “Longing” by Matthew Arnold. The words make tears fall from my eyes. It’s nothing new. I cry a fucking lot since I moved out of the unit.
My “outpatient life” counselor keeps pushing me to do a screening for depression, but I know I don’t need that shit. I don’t need a pill, or some kind of therapy where I talk about my shit with someone who doesn’t know shit about me or my life. It’s fucking simple really. I like crying over Cleo.
No, it’s not my thyroid. My testosterone is fine as well. They test all that shit, all the time. I’m healthy, in those ways at least. I’m A-okay. So what if I never use my dick? I still wake up with wood. My balls ache, telling me to let them blow sometimes, but I don’t care. One time I ignored them for six days and woke up in a pool of my own cum.
Pathetic.
Just like last time after discharge, I avoid the mirror, though this time, the reasoning is different. My hair’s growing back in—thick, soft gold—and I’m filling out from all the lifting, but I just... don’t want to see my face. I think it will make me think of her face. Of her hands in my hair.
I scoot to the bed’s edge and press my hand against the glass wall. The cool is soothing. I scoot closer and let my forehead touch as well. It almost feels like a cool hand. Her hand.
I look at the clock: 1:46 AM. I have a blood draw at 8 AM tomorrow morning. I need to go the fuck to bed. I tug the blankets up to my neck and curl onto my side. Then I push a pillow behind me.
“Goodnight, Cleo. I love you.”
Tonight, the darkness seems to leak into my heart. I ache terribly for her. I hold her pillow to my chest and start to cry, so hard and fast it’s sobbing.
She’s not coming back.
I clench my hands and look at them, and see her hands around them. I need her. I can’t fucking breathe without her.
Why am I here?
Without her... I pick up her stack of sparrows and I hug them to my chest. I get my breathing back under control. I swallow an Ativan. Maybe I’m wrong, about the crying feeling good. Right now, I just want to go to sleep.
I wake at 3:11 with a nightmare. I summon her voice. “You’re okay. Don’t be scared... I’m here. I’ll be with you.”
I’m lying on my side, holding my chest, when someone knocks on my door. Bangs. It sounds so frenzied, my heart starts to race.
Sometimes I think of fires…
I glance at my shirt as I stride into the living room. I look out all the windows, but I don’t see flame or smoke. I am the end unit. Sometimes people get lost.
I look out the peep hole imagining her face—so when I see it, I blink once, twice, three times. Then my body goes white hot.
That is Cleo. Hairless Cleo, swaying on my mat. I’m so alarmed by how pale and thin and…nearly bald she is, I jerk the door open without another thought.
The second that she sees my face, she starts to sob.
“Oh fuck, baby…” I reach for her.
I’m surprised when her thin arms bat me away.