Dear Maddie,
Remember you said you put things in boxes? Afterwards I imagined your mind as something like a warehouse, shelves and shelves of boxes. Cardboard boxes. Each one neatly taped up and labeled with black sharpie in your patient handwriting, all sorted and stacked in the appropriate pile. I remember being angry, thinking about how you could just pack me all away in a fucking cardboard box and push me off to the side somewhere I could sit unobtrusively and collect dust. How could I ever fit into a god damn box?
Sometimes I think about my own mind like a collection of boxes. Except I usually think of everything as stored in files, not boxes. You know. Like a room full of patient files… my creativity is astounding.
Or sometimes I think of everything as stored in a variety of bottles. Lots and lots of different kinds of bottles. Different shapes and sizes and colors, all lined up and, for the most part, carefully corked. I’ve always been so very fond of bottling.
No matter how I try to gather you up and put you away, you never really stay put. If it’s patient charts, then you’ve been misfiled into a slew of other files you really oughtn’t be in. So who knows when I’ll pull a file and unexpectedly find you in it. And sometimes your file just mysteriously tumbles to the floor, papers everywhere, a total office nightmare. Not to mention super unethical.
Or if it’s bottles, something goes terribly wrong, like some sort of misguided third grade science project, and your cork goes flying and the force of the explosion knocks other bottles off the shelves and then I have to mop up for days but I’m pretty sure those stains aren’t coming out.
Or sometimes I feel like I rip the cork off in a frenzy of regret and I just chug whatever poison I’ve labeled with your name. Though I’m not sure why it comes to that. I suppose because I’m thirsty and I’m almost certain that all the other bottles are filled with colored sand and paperclips.
It’s one o’clock and I’m tired.
I have to run group tomorrow for a bunch of eight year old girls. It’s not so bad. Except things are super tense between Batch and Kim.
I quit Kim’s office the other day and she cried. She cried, Maddie. So we shut the door and sat on the couch and she tried (unsuccessfully) not to let her voice break while she talked about it. But I had to. I bleed Triple Play, not Southlake. So I sort of just sat there with my concerned face on, wondering how we got there, wishing so desperately that she could just find a way to be happy.
Anyway.
I hope you’re happy. Always.
- M
ps: I broke down and texted Bence a couple days ago and told her I was still around if she wanted to meet up sometime. She texted back a time and place. I haven’t told our mom. She keeps trying but Bence is complete radio silence. I get it, I do. But it sucks. It really, really sucks. I don’t know what to do. I won’t abandon my baby sister.
Sometimes I think about my own mind like a collection of boxes. Except I usually think of everything as stored in files, not boxes. You know. Like a room full of patient files… my creativity is astounding.
Or sometimes I think of everything as stored in a variety of bottles. Lots and lots of different kinds of bottles. Different shapes and sizes and colors, all lined up and, for the most part, carefully corked. I’ve always been so very fond of bottling.
No matter how I try to gather you up and put you away, you never really stay put. If it’s patient charts, then you’ve been misfiled into a slew of other files you really oughtn’t be in. So who knows when I’ll pull a file and unexpectedly find you in it. And sometimes your file just mysteriously tumbles to the floor, papers everywhere, a total office nightmare. Not to mention super unethical.
Or if it’s bottles, something goes terribly wrong, like some sort of misguided third grade science project, and your cork goes flying and the force of the explosion knocks other bottles off the shelves and then I have to mop up for days but I’m pretty sure those stains aren’t coming out.
Or sometimes I feel like I rip the cork off in a frenzy of regret and I just chug whatever poison I’ve labeled with your name. Though I’m not sure why it comes to that. I suppose because I’m thirsty and I’m almost certain that all the other bottles are filled with colored sand and paperclips.
It’s one o’clock and I’m tired.
I have to run group tomorrow for a bunch of eight year old girls. It’s not so bad. Except things are super tense between Batch and Kim.
I quit Kim’s office the other day and she cried. She cried, Maddie. So we shut the door and sat on the couch and she tried (unsuccessfully) not to let her voice break while she talked about it. But I had to. I bleed Triple Play, not Southlake. So I sort of just sat there with my concerned face on, wondering how we got there, wishing so desperately that she could just find a way to be happy.
Anyway.
I hope you’re happy. Always.
- M
ps: I broke down and texted Bence a couple days ago and told her I was still around if she wanted to meet up sometime. She texted back a time and place. I haven’t told our mom. She keeps trying but Bence is complete radio silence. I get it, I do. But it sucks. It really, really sucks. I don’t know what to do. I won’t abandon my baby sister.