She lived in a motel where the mirrors had given up on accuracy some years prior
And the walls had absorbed enough of her specific frequency to develop aspiration higher
She’d organized her pharmaceuticals by emotional need
and labeled them accordingly
And the ones on the left shelf were for the reality she found more orderly
She had a conversation running with a doll head liberated from the torso
And maintained it provided better counsel than the therapy,
which she found worse, so
She’d stopped attending
and started attending to whatever the doll head had in mind
For the forty-seventh of its recurring opinions about what she was going to find
Spider veins and sugar rage — the specific chemistry of her specific page
She ran the whole equation on a frequency that the conventional can’t calculate
Spider veins and sugar rage —
operating at the edge of what the daylight can tolerate
At three in the morning she’d take the parking lot for dancing
when the mood permitted
And issue a sustained operatic complaint to whatever the sky had committed
Against her, which was extensive
and documented in the notebook of specific offense
She kept under the mattress alongside the evidence for all her major life defense
The straightjacket she wore as a considered fashion commentary on the general condition
She’d answer questions about it with the patience of someone explaining position
To people who haven’t thought about it deeply enough to have an actual opinion
She sold me a jar and I bought it on the general principle
That whatever she’d assembled in it probably had applications practical and mineral
Spider veins and sugar rage —
the specific frequency of an entirely original human
The kind of person that makes you wonder what’s actually the agreed-upon illumination