Old enough

Outside Barry's office there’s an empty park with grass so green it looks fake, I touch it just to make sure. It's funny how Lechmere is the end of the line, but it's also right on the water in Cambridge facing the Boston skyline. Not Andrea and the skyline that I'm used to, but all the buildings in the financial district. Oh, there's Andrea, if you look the other way. But anyway I figure since no one's around I'll just lie in the grass for a few minutes, maybe even take off my shirt and feel the sun on my skin now that it's getting warm but not too warm. I was worried about spring in Boston, worried that there would only be a few days and then the horror of summer like in DC, but actually it's lasting kind of a long time, it even gets chilly at night and that's my favorite part.

            The next time I start the hypnosis on that boulder at Tire Beach in San Francisco, like in that picture of me at that dance workshop, holding a shopping cart while balancing above the water. I'm writing numbers on a piece of clear plastic with wet pink chalk, and then erasing them, Barry says when we get to number one I'll feel completely relaxed and at ease. It's funny how these simple mind games actually work.

Except then I need to put my parents in a cage, but how do they keep getting out? Maybe something taller, an opaque box with neon lights on the outside to warn you, except then I start crying because I'm trapped in a cave, way at the bottom of that falling and falling in Alice in Wonderland, mushrooms and butterflies rushing past me but then I'm stuck at the bottom until wait, all the fear drops away and I feel so relaxed, floating like I'm on ecstasy, pure MDMA and I'm watching the lights moving, although now I need to pull myself out of the ditch with a rope except there’s my father and I'm smacking his face with a heavy metal pitchfork but still it keeps coming back. I'm hanging from a rope, I mean the rope is squeezing my throat and my head expands until it's a balloon, my father playing with my penis oh how I hate that word and it's tiny, he's tickling my balls and then he puts it all in his mouth, looking up at me and I want to poke his eyes out but I can't move and then pop, there goes my head: I can't find my body the middle of my body, chest to thighs, it's all gone.

            There it is, hanging there like a piece of meat. But what are the things that I brought that make me feel safe? Moby’s Ambient because it's so calm. My journal, but I bring that everywhere. Close to the Knives. I've decided to go to therapy twice a week, Barry says there's a lot coming up so I could use more time. Afterwards I go outside and it's kind of like I'm on a different planet, everything is darker even though it's the middle of the day — it shouldn't be darker, should it?

I still feel like the center of my body is gone, my head way up in the sky. It's drizzling but I like the fresh air although I need some sun on my face to get rid of my acne. Did I mention the movie screen at therapy, watch it on a movie screen and that will make it safer, you have control. Control: that's a word Barry uses a lot. Safety. But then I was watching Alice in Wonderland in black and white, the rows and rows of empty seats and my father reaching between my legs and Alice just keeps falling and falling until I start screaming and we have to leave early. My father says he was wrong: he thought I was old enough to go to an adult movie.