Email | Print

Everything and all things: the cold, white tiles under my feet, the temperature of the water in the tub, the song that plays somewhere on the radio, you who are reading this now—all of it has meaning specific to me. God makes it all that way and He tells me things through these things. I lower my toes into the water and feel his heat close around them. Do you see how He loves me this way too? I am perfectly adored.
I admire my breasts, fluid and familiar. I touch my doughy abdomen and love its pale, soft kindness. I push my head back to feel the hair heavy and wet. I am God’s mermaid, basking in my holy water. Farther back, I let my face receive the water’s caress and I breathe some in through my nose just because I know God is there.
They sent a man to watch me shave. His name is Kenny. I always make him smile. “I love you, Kenny.” He’s like a vanilla ice-cream cone with sprinkles of dark, curly hair. His face is a crinkle around the eyes. “I love you too, Noelle.” I’m thoroughly fed when I hear it because I feel it too.
Kenny and I watch the soapy soldiers fall away in razor-length regiments on the battleground of my calf. “It looks like suffering, Kenny. All the death and cruelty, but in the end it won’t mean more than a mosquito-bite.”
I grab purple socks, a green plaid skirt and a stripy shirt that shouldn’t go, but God said it would. I’ve got big jewel earrings with shiny diamonds and rubies. When I put the socks on, I cry. I am so beautiful. On the way to breakfast everyone says so, too. I smile at Willie and he winks back. He’s cute and Puerto Rican and way too young for me, but we shared a secret kiss.
What will the food teach me today? I sit next to Dora who’s been nuts for so long she has the act down. Her eyes wobble behind thick, old-man’s glasses. Her pants have no zipper and the fat of her belly sticks through a large safety-pin. “Hiya Dora.” She won’t look back at me, but she bobs welcomingly.
I lift the plastic lid of this morning’s treasure box. At once I see…an egg! I’ve been given the gift of a glorious, dazzling white egg. I feel the pressure of new tears. God shows me what must be done and that it’s right to have Sugar-Pops now.
After breakfast, a young, red-haired guy named Peter is surprised by his own ESP. He comes to my room to tell me that company is coming. I’ve been sitting on my egg for the right amount of time and when my visitor comes, I show him. “I’m hatching peace,” I explain. My visitor thinks that I am “so sweet,” but then I fumble and drop the egg and its surface shell cracks. It isn’t perfect anymore (except it is), so I toss it in the trash and say, “Oh well.”
There is a man named Bobby who sits by the window. He is heavy and pasty. He has a lecherous smell. His hair is matted with white crust. I offer to brush it. We are like two friends in a snowy meadow when I finish, his hair gleaming like horse flanks and reaching nearly to his waist.
We die for cigarettes a lot around here. They only take us outside now and then. It’s a terrible winter, but God we love to be out in it. We draw deeply to take the life from the cigarette and joke about our unusual common denominators. We breathe God’s air and touch God’s cold and see God’s snow.
I am the queen of outside. Everyone wants to borrow or have something of mine and I always give it. Sarah wants a glove to keep her smoking-hand warm. Deborah wants my rabbit-skin hat because I look cute in it and she will too. The only thing I haven’t shared yet are my royal boots or the muc-lucs that line them. I laugh while God helps me convince everybody of their greatness. I am so happy.
During therapy this evening, we are holding hands in a circle. There is a small, oriental woman facing me. She is blind. When she talks, her voice is small like a bird’s and her accented words are so sorrowful and lonely that my heart reaches into hers. She breaks the circle and cries at the pain of the beauty of the feeling. God is so amazing.
The lights are off in all the rooms, but they let me sing. I’m so happy they let me sing. I sing and sing and my voice is like a wild thing, part horse, part bird, part stars in their fiery brightness. I hold nothing back for fear, embarrassment or shame. He’s my creator, my lover, my father, my dream and I am His.