My mother used to say I looked like I’d escaped
from the Manicomnio.
Always something bruised
echoing around my eyes smeared
perpetually dark
like the nights I laid awake in, body kept still enough
almost not to breathe
ignoring the silent spill of coppery-yellow ambulance lights
on the lawn.

It’s worse when ambulances don’t make sound.
It’s like a neighborhood secret, known
and seen by all;
spoken by none.
The Monday Tuesday crew knew my house by memory,
knew the woman that awaited them in the dim
guestroom while the scared host
family pretended to sleep behind closed doors.
It was not an alarm to be called over to gather my aunt,
it was a covert late-night ritual:

Come through the dark green unlocked door,
the small old dog greets with familiar whining.
He knows your scent and you know his brown-eyed pining.
Up the wooden flight of stairs,
with the pillowed gurney—quiet,
the corridor of closed bedroom doors are watchful
By now avoiding creaky boards is subconscious memory,
feet passing instinctual over warped stairs.

The house only ever carries two sounds:
choked convulsions,
the taunt pull of muscles spasming against thinly cushioned floor.

Night was the trampling grounds of Finality.
The monster of a growing brain tumor filled
the house, heavy.
Sleep was elusive smoke blissfully warm
momentarily caught
through tightly gripped hands;
but school would come anyway.

So in the pre-dawn mornings, without a light
I stood in front of scratched mirrors practicing
smiles, pleasant surprise
the mirco-movements that tell fellow humans “Yes! Hello!
It’s me!
Alive!”
But weary peers always know
a Manicomnio escapee mimicking.
It’s the eyes, not the lips
the brown-irised rings that spark light
give an assimilation of life.

*Manicomnio is lunatic asylum in Spanish