(for Winona Ryder)
“have you ever confused a dream with life?
or stolen something when you had the cash?
have you ever been blue?
or thought your train moving while sitting still?”
i am a petite almost anorexic
brunette with a sad face
and smouldering dark eyes
just your average high school grad
with a penchant for the professor’s
‘pencil’
my life takes a turn
when i take an overdose
of aspirin and find myself
in the hospital there is something wrong
with the world which can’t see reality
the way i see it
sometimes i feel there are no bones
in my body sometimes they just tend
to grow back
my parents took me to a holiday
abroad as a five year old
with a fractured leg strapped
to the car seat
now they worry about the
coming Christmas party
the spirit of giving
how caring
i am in a mental institution
they call a five star hotel
here when i shave my leg
they watch
and my friends keep guard
when i make out
with my boyfriend in the evening
and kiss an orderly at night
it’s late 1960s society is coming out
of its moorings
Woodstock is in the air
and here am called promiscuous
"how many girls would a 17-year-old boy
have to sleep with to earn the label
'compulsively promiscuous'?
and how many boys for 17-year-old girls?"
ha
and they call me a borderline case
hyperventilating between good and bad
between reality and illusion
between danger and security
between strength and vulnerability
between delusion and delight
i am empty yet images
appear in my mind
as flashbacks with no legs to walk on
my construct has no sense of context
i relate to the immediate
with no blinkers on
since i have no idea of time
i am timeless
i am closer to reality
than you might think
i self-destruct
and then wait
to be rescued
i am a girl, interrupted
( 27 April 2003 )
