There are these times when she can forget she loathes herself.

When her body flows in dance; when her mind is engulfed in music; when the strangers around her coax her out of herself and into a delicately forgetful tier of life.

Now, is not one of those times.

Under the sky; under the moon; under the stars; she laughs. Psychotically she laughs as forced tears wet her face.

Bare feet and half undone shirt, she lays on the wooden table. Dew has fallen; the table is wet.

She would be cold if her body wasn't shaking in in laughter. Just for a moment, she says, laugh at the pure derangement of my existence.

Her back falls on and off the wood, spasming in an attempt to just be steeped in something: anything. Even throwing her skull onto the surface does not hold the result it used to.

The medicine: mostly it helps, but there is one thing she misses: the ability to be folded into the cosmic darkness of immensity; those nighttime moments when every created thing felt delusionally vain. When she was engulfed in nothing, she felt the abyss over her like a blanket. She felt insane, but at least she did not feel concern.

The pills stop this from happening. She doesn't claim this to be good or bad.

After a moment, she dries her few tears, fixes her shirt, and walks back inside.

10-6-22