The Pure Blue Burn

My bake shift in the Red Herring’s basement kitchen started at six in the morning. Working alone, I stirred and baked vegan muffins, vegan scones, purity assured, nothing assuring the pure pleasure of a golden butter pat. My arms grew hard as rolling pins, thoughts turned over (then over again) as I creamed organic margarine into whole-wheat pastry flour, then stirred in dried apricots like ears which might have heard me had I spoken.

The oven choked three, four times each bake shift. I opened its door, sniffed gas, saw no blue light. I lit a match, reaching in to whump! and heat, hungry flame. Some part of me hoping to catch too, blaze up blue, pure illumination. I crowded trays with vegan chocolate chip cookies, filled pans with dried-cherry vegan scones.

The sane cannot know this moment: I struck a match, lit a gas jet, found my mind in the pure blue burn of psychosis. I saw a steel tray in my hand, could not think what it was for. It rang to the floor. I did too, an open mouth. “Oh God,” I cried, hearing sunlight beating against the kitchen’s east exit.

“God,” I said. I was food. I was burning. I was born again for gorging on sight. I rose, thrumming, entirely turned, fully alight.

***

If you’d spent an hour with me that sun-lit day, sobbing, rocking, talking fast: “All of you need so much more than I can give but you can have me if you need me because I’m nothing but so much love for you soon there will be no-thing left because the only one God does not love is me her daughter and maybe for a moment you could love me or maybe for forever as I become molecular and disappear inside you,” you’d know me.

The twenty-two-year-old woman who turned on the evening news in her bedroom after a day walking Champaign-Urbana barefoot, heard President Clinton say, “Christina, thank you for the sacrifice you will make. And, just for tonight baby doll, before we crucify, we will love you all the right ways.”

She laughed until she retched at a show made just for her, twirled, danced, stripped for cameras in the walls – the world-wide, all-night, live-satellite broadcast of Everybody Loves Christ-ina Socorro Yovovich. All night long, she really loved being Jesus.

***

My wrists and ankles were strapped to corners of an emergency-room bed. Me! who always followed rules. My right pinky, stretched, could touch the buckle of a leather strap. The world turned puzzle of pinky, buckle, strap. Pinky wiggled strap. Strap slipped out of buckle. Done. The world grew – right hand. Right hand freed left hand, left foot, right foot.

Tired of this game I walked out, found myself in a hall covered in commandments. Push for Assistance. I pushed. Restroom. I rested. Exit. I walked towards it – two guards grabbed my arms. I thought to deck them and run but didn’t know how. They took me back to that damn bed, made the straps tight. Alone again, hands and feet, hurting, tingling, then gone, I remembered the men’s closed mouths. I wished I could close my legs. Why didn’t they speak? They’d eaten their tongues.

I saw cameras hidden inside ceiling sprinkler heads, told them, “I have to pee.” Much later, louder “Please, I have to go.” Then shouting “I’m going to piss my –” The guards took me to Restroom. I entered alone, hands and feet buzzing with flies, read all the signs. One told me to leave my sample on the shelf. But how? With my hands? The sign was a trick. When I finished, I stood, stretched. My father had told me on the phone that morning Remember to breathe. I remembered for a long time.

After, they muscled me back to the bed. I am a large woman. I went limp, dropped from their holds. For a moment, two wolves with moons for mouths howled for the pack. They pounced, turned men again, did not turn back. I cried, thrashed like a deer culled to ground. Snot ran down my face. More men ran in, threw me up onto the bed like a thing already dead. Straps bit. Five men circled, then four leapt – pressing bodies on mine while the fifth leaned in. I screamed – woman screaming in a room with four men holding her while the fifth jerks down her pants. Even crazy (I knew that now) I understood what came next.

Instead, the needle, cold medicine spreading inside. You could have told me, I said, crying. The missing hours start here:

(

).

I came back still strapped to a mattress, a nurse asking “Name? Address? Insurance?” writing my answers on a form. Later, a doctor speaking a new word: bi-polar. Two poles? Like a planet? Did I need more? Less? He said I had been psychotic, uncooperative. I began to speak – he cut me off – “Of course, you won’t remember,” the moon rising in his mouth.

***

The nurse released my restraints, handed me my shoes, laces gone. I found someone had stolen my hands, left their old ones hanging from my wrists. I sat on the edge of the mattress on the floor of the observation room. My strange hands fumbled with the shoes’ open mouths.

The nurse handed me a small white cup filled with pills. After I swallowed, she took me on a tour of the ward. She showed me doors that did not open. She showed me the cabinet stuffed with sheets. I put my face up close to see (had not been given my glasses) what I only knew were stacks of white. I wondered, which kind of sheets? Writing sheets, sheets for ghosting, fever dreams, driving rain on thunder nights? She told me to take new sheets each day, did not say what they were for. Sheets for birthing, I thought. Sheets for shrouding. Sheets for dying.

She showed me the recreation room. Re-creation, I heard. Creation again, rising, dying, taken again, I scanned the hall, fearing finding silent men. She showed me the room with the bathtub, the sign on its door. Again, I put my face up close to see – found man-figure with two legs, woman-figure with one triangle. Beneath, a red arrow swiveled to aim at one then the other. The nurse said to aim at the right one before going inside to be alone to get clean. I knew both figures were wrong for me, woman with no dress. I’d aim at male two-legs or female one-triangle, hide inside filthy naked – then men rushing in, handing me to the re-creation room, where all things happen over, then over again.

She showed me my room, its one kindness: sheets, whichever kind – ghosting, leaving, dreaming – shrouding both beds. She said I had seen everything, left.

I whispered a list of the things I already did not remember. Praying to lose nothing more, I cupped stranger’s hands dangling from my wrists, knowing too much was already gone, cradling those last fallen words.

***

I edged around the blur of other patients for hours before I was given my glasses. They snapped sharp, turning twitching edges. Retreating to my room, I found another woman on the other bed. Being Jesus meant I was never alone. She had red mouths up and down her arms, the younger children of the lined mouth which opened thin across her face to say “Hello.” Her word seized my throat, and I turned, silent, from her sad spark eyes. I didn’t want to save her. She didn’t want to be saved.

In the recreation room that night, I scooped square peaches and fruit like eyes from a cup. Across the room, the other woman’s face creased over her supper “Look at her. There’s always one in every bunch.” A man, his face a sprung star, jerked his chin up “Always is,” then bit into his buttered bread. The other woman’s sad sparks took my gaze – she shook her head. I looked away, cupped my last pale eye with my spoon’s plastic palm. It trembled; I knew there would be another night, another cup. I could never leave, was always One, always here, always Her – the Christ reborn in every bunch.

***

It began on the second day, in the recreation room, in the afternoon. The other patients were watching tv, tapping on window panes, sitting then standing then sitting again. I was sitting, trying to know I was not Jesus. More, that no one else (even if God had whispered I was her saving grace on close, walled-in nights) knew I was Jesus either. If I knew I was not Jesus, they might let me out of this locked place on a high floor of a tall building looking over the twin flat towns of Urbana-Champaign.

I looked at my hands, thought, those are not the hands of Christ. My eyes lifted to the heavens. Oh shit, I thought, pulled my head down. Heaven tugged it back up. I pulled it down. It tugged it up. “I’m an atheist,” I hissed, snapped chin to chest. All through the afternoon, dinner, primetime shows, my Judas body fought to keep my face uplifted. I kept it hidden. If doctors, nurses, other patients saw, they’d never let me go. They’d know my crazy had crept inside my bones.

Night came, lights out but for a glow from the wire-reinforced window-walled nurse’s station. I let it take me then, (no one could see). My head went up, neck bowed back. Back bowed too, body becoming word, forming a C, the first letter of the name of the daughter of God. I am trapped inside the word of God, I thought. It got worse – morning might find my head by my feet, body a hoop, an O, nothing at all. My throat cramped. I thought morning might find me dead.

I saw my choice spread out like a stain on the ceiling: keep my secret and die, or confess, know they’d never let me go. I walked into the hall, stood by the nurse’s station, eyes on the stained ceiling, waiting to be noticed, being cooperative. From behind the glass a nurse asked, “Is anything wrong honey?”

“I can’t put down my head,” I said. She told me wait, left, returned offering a cup filled with small pills, another with warm water. Could I swallow? I swallowed, throat fighting. She walked me up, down the hall. Did I feel better? “I’m sorry,” I said. She took me to my bed, put me on my stomach, head back, neck wry.

She said I needed a shot and I thought then I had made the wrong choice but what I said was, “I’m sorry.” She took the needle, tugged down my pants, rubbed me with something cold, then plunged it in. As she worked, she spoke softly. After, she asked to rub my back. I said yes. She told me about medicine, side-effects. “I thought it was me,” I said. Then, “I was afraid.”

"I was too,” she said and I fell asleep. In morning, I saw my hands, thought, these are not the hands of Jesus. My head stayed down. My doctor came talking side-effects – his voice barking as if it had been me, after all. I tried a new tactic: “This is a good place,” I smiled (still a little like Jesus). “People are kind. They take care of me.”

He looked at me straight, the first time, “This is a very bad place. People are crazy here. Take your medicine.” Oh shit, I thought. I’m never getting out, no matter whose hands they are.

***

My doctor put me in group therapy on the afternoon of the third day. A door was unlocked. Six filed in to a new hall, new small room. We sat in a circle, said how we were. “I’m feeling better,” I said. “The medicine is helping.” That seemed like the right thing to say.

I did not listen to what other patients said. I listened to voices. Some slurred. Wrong, I thought. Some sharped. Wrong, I thought. I had done best. The therapist put us in pairs, putting me with my roommate – her lined face, red cut arms. The therapist told us to share one positive goal. Five minutes – then we’d present our partner’s positive goal. Easy, I thought. I went first. “I’d like to write a novel.” My roommate’s breath chuffed. “Now you,” I said. “We only have a few minutes.”

Finally, soft, she said, “What I really want is to die.”

I held my right hand with my left, so it would not hit her. “I can’t say that. Say something else.”

She said, “I’d like to put a bullet through my head.” Her face flickered open, dimmed light succeeding frozen features.

I kept my feet planted hard so I wouldn’t run out of the room. I held the bottom of my chair so I wouldn’t throw it at her head. All I said – “Something else.”

Just before the test my roommate’s face resolved, “College, I guess I’d go to college.”

I let go. “Okay, I’ll say that.”

We shared around the circle, me getting the positive goal just right: “She wants to go to college.”

The therapist smiled, “That’s good.”

I didn’t brag I’d already been, let my roommate speak for me: “She wants to write a novel.”

The therapist smiled again, “Another good goal.”

I saw my partner smile too, thought, she’ll never go to college. Saw myself – my broken brain – thought, I’ll never write again. The therapist moved on to the next positive goal. My roommate nodded, mouth turned down – her sad smile – said, “You did alright.” I clenched my fists, longed to sock open her soft star face.

***

I don’t remember the moment of my release from the locked psychiatric ward clearly enough to write it. I remember this: sitting cross-legged on the bed I shared with my boyfriend (now husband) in an apartment we’d shared for less than two months. He had left for work. I tried not to look at the millions of microscopic satellite cameras embedded in the walls. None of them were on anyway. If any of you had asked I would have said there were no satellite cameras, had never been any cameras, I could not see any satellite cameras. I felt the danger of how much all of you did not love me.

I heard, far away, drums, then trombones followed by a blaze of horns. The sunrise-colored leaves outside my window shifted to sunset’s hue as an entire planet of averted eyes turned the corner, marched down the middle of my street – all of you playing on the beat, looking straight ahead. The cameras hummed on but none of you were home to watch the broadcast. “We loved you,” your horn playing, drum beating, baton twirling, said. “We loved you. We won’t say it again and if you ask, you’ll pay.” I looked at the cameras, once, nodded. I was out, learning to keep to myself. I was not well.

***

I was not raped in the emergency room of the hospital. I was administered a shot containing Haldol because I was psychotic. In later months, my not-rape liked to sneak up on me. One afternoon I washed dishes in the kitchen of the Red Herring restaurant. Two doctors from the hospital’s locked ward walked in, ordered lunch. My not-rape walked in with them, entered the kitchen, put its hands on me.

I dropped the plate in my hand and ran, out the door, down the street, until I couldn’t anymore. When I stopped, my not-rape caught up. Nothing happened, it whispered in my ear, hands running through my hair. It walked me back to the restaurant, arm snaked around my waist. Not rape, it said with each step. Not rape. I knew I had not earned the panic still making me shake. It split me in half.

Before.

After.

My two halves liked to go off in different directions, leaving me alone. I’d go in search, find one rooting in a neighbor’s yard, another standing in the middle of a busy street. I knew I had no story to tell. And so I could not tell it. I told myself, it was not rape. I had no reason to be afraid.

***

I saw my psychiatrist at the community clinic. We met in a pre-school classroom filled with low round tables, bulletin boards covered with crayon drawings of hills like green behinds, apple trees like diseased lollipops. We sat on tiny chairs, knees up by our elbows. Every visit I resolved to hold to all my twenty-two years. Every visit, I felt them fall away, torn pages in a picture book.

My psychiatrist’s words hit sharp. I wrapped my arms around my legs so I wouldn’t run. One visit in late fall, my psychiatrist said, “Do you take your lithium every day?”

I said I did – it made me sick.

“Take it with food,” he tapped his pen on the first word and the last.

I said I’d gained twenty pounds.

“Take it with more food,” he said.

I asked for a new drug.

“You don’t have money. This drug is what you get.”

Next, I asked for a referral to a therapist.

His pen punctuated his words again, “You don’t need therapy. You need drugs. You are sick.”

I gripped my knees, “I’m always afraid.”

“You do not have emotional problems,” he said.

I whispered, “I do.”

My psychiatrist dropped his pen, hit his hand on the low round table which wobbled staccato on uneven feet. “Fine,” the table jumped staccato again. “Fine. I will give you therapy. Right now.” He rolled his eyes, “Tell me about your emotional problems.”

My throat squeezed shut.

“Tell me,” he said, leaning across the low round table, hands spread out as if tensing for flight.

Before my throat made its final seal I said, “Not you.”

He leaned back, smiled thin, hands perched. “See? You don’t need therapy.”

He told me when to return for my next appointment. I left the crayon pictures of orchard hills behind, left the community clinic, walking a slow path along the red-bricked road, turned the corner, ran – through traffic, down unknown streets, stopping only when I found myself in an unknown park, somewhere far from where I’d been, bare trees casting patterns against cloud- grey sky, hills hugging ground so tightly there were no hills at all.

***

The Graduate-Student Therapist listened at cut rate, a tape-recorder between us for her professor’s review.

I said, “I thought I was Jesus. Now I’m never allowed to think I’m worth shit again.”

She leaned in, hand reaching across the divide, “You have a disease. Would you blame yourself for diabetes?” She pulled back at my eye’s roll, lectured me on lithium, insulin.

I slapped myself upside the head, “This is not like diabetes.” She flinched. I breathed, remembered being filled with loving-kindness. The best I could do: “I come here to talk to you because you aren’t my friend.”

Her hand trembled, “I think we find friends anywhere we look.”

I looked down, answer coming slow, “Yes, friends are everywhere.”

Later, walking home along brick slush streets, whispers rose beneath my feet: Save yourself.

***

“There must be serious concerns about any attempt to reduce what is
beautiful and original to a clinical syndrome... It is frightening
and ultimately boring to think of anyone... in such a limited way.”

–Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness
and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Renfield Jamison

Bored, I found myself limited to a medicated mind level as all Urbana-Champaign. I sat curbside scraping my palms on concrete, calling out wells of blood. I stood, spread my palms out, searched for the streets I’d walked before my mind walked mundane, disordered paths. Missing the days when no book concerned me, I found myself reduced to a diagnosis – one of a kind so numerous as to rate self-help books, support groups, memoirs. I missed my mind being beautiful, wished to feel it tempered by fire again. I searched – couldn’t find that lovely, burning, a- syndromatic street.

Christina Socorro Yovovich lives and writes in New Mexico. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as the Blue Mesa Review and River Styx, and her nonfiction has appeared in Mutha Magazine. She is at work on a memoir of her mental illness and parenting.