Paranoia
Aaylah
She’s sixteen years old, the age of butterflies and dewdrops and dreams. But there’s not a single window in her bedroom, no release from the ivory cocoon-like walls.
The cream-carpeted floors are dripping with paint; the scarlets and gingers of a sunset forming on the rug. Sketches are scribbled on the sheets; of meadows and animals, grazing grasses sweet. They’re her escape, gateway to the world, because she doesn’t go out anymore, doesn’t even think it.
Her mama used to worry, Darling, it’s a lovely day. Why are you all alone?, but her little girl would just shake her fairy-blond head.
I can’t go out no more,
There’s a man outside my door.
In a raincoat, smoking a cigarette.
They named her Aaylah, because they knew, the moment she was born, the child bore a special light. The couple still believed it, even as she flinched from the sun’s beaming touch the moment she walked outside, her eyes a jade jagged and fearful enough to burst.
She’d always hurry, breath ragged, into the confined safety of her home. Darting up the creaky stairs, locking the door to her sanctuary, where bliss is in the form pencils and pastels.
Sometimes courage boils within her, and Aaylah dares to perch herself in front of her mother and father’s bedside window. The moon’s a jewel, surrounded by diamond stars, the luminescence of the sky shining upon an unwelcome visitor.
”I can see him from up here,
His cigarette winks from just above
His trenchcoat collar.
And somewhere there’s a man
On a subway, sitting under a Black Velvet,
Thinking my name.”
Time floats with the bluebirds and robins, the snow, crimson leaves, and blossoms flipping like pages in a book. She’s not a child or a girl; no, a woman. A young lady left alone by her parents, who had finally realized they were of no assistance. From the corners of the rooms, the cracks of the door, she can hear them whispering like the wind.
Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. The poor, poor girl.
How she wants to speak to them, scream it into their souls, ”He’s there, can’t you see him, oh, can’t you?!”
I saw his muddy hands on the porcelain.
And then, one day, she falls in love, but this man’s not there, not like the stranger outside. He has curls like autumn and eyes that shine like crystal linn; a grin broader than the universe in it’s entirety. But he tells her to take walks, along the beach; on the city pavement, to see the lights and the people, but all she sees is him.
So she shrieks to her beloved, again and again.
I can’t go out no more,
There’s a man outside my door.
In a raincoat, smoking a cigarette.
But she’s fallen so hard for the boy in her mind that she doesn’t realize it’s the scary man; he’s crawled deep within her thoughts, to trick her, to frighten her.
To kill her.
Aaylah’s shaking so hard and her pulse multiplies by the minute. She wants to get away, but she hears the scratching on the oaken door, the shaded windows, so all she does is scream.
You can run, but we’ll find you.
There are faces and voices and sounds surrounding her, but she can’t set herself free; there is no escape of this torture.
She even wakes one morning, in a pretty white room, just like the one from her childhood, with the easels and oilettes. There are nice men and women who hide their shame and ‘tsks’, but it’s all the same, always the same.
The hospital bed is set across from a window that seems to go on forever, the brown, dirtied coat imprinted in her eyes.
”Did I tell you I can’t go out no more?
There’s a man by the door,
In a raincoat.”
There are bloody crescents on her palms, crimson dripping from her bitten lip; she's wishing so hard it hurts.
Stil there still there still there.
And suddenly, finally, a gift from paradise, her shallow pants gives way to eternal unconscious.
The cream-carpeted floors are dripping with paint; the scarlets and gingers of a sunset forming on the rug. Sketches are scribbled on the sheets; of meadows and animals, grazing grasses sweet. They’re her escape, gateway to the world, because she doesn’t go out anymore, doesn’t even think it.
Her mama used to worry, Darling, it’s a lovely day. Why are you all alone?, but her little girl would just shake her fairy-blond head.
I can’t go out no more,
There’s a man outside my door.
In a raincoat, smoking a cigarette.
They named her Aaylah, because they knew, the moment she was born, the child bore a special light. The couple still believed it, even as she flinched from the sun’s beaming touch the moment she walked outside, her eyes a jade jagged and fearful enough to burst.
She’d always hurry, breath ragged, into the confined safety of her home. Darting up the creaky stairs, locking the door to her sanctuary, where bliss is in the form pencils and pastels.
Sometimes courage boils within her, and Aaylah dares to perch herself in front of her mother and father’s bedside window. The moon’s a jewel, surrounded by diamond stars, the luminescence of the sky shining upon an unwelcome visitor.
”I can see him from up here,
His cigarette winks from just above
His trenchcoat collar.
And somewhere there’s a man
On a subway, sitting under a Black Velvet,
Thinking my name.”
Time floats with the bluebirds and robins, the snow, crimson leaves, and blossoms flipping like pages in a book. She’s not a child or a girl; no, a woman. A young lady left alone by her parents, who had finally realized they were of no assistance. From the corners of the rooms, the cracks of the door, she can hear them whispering like the wind.
Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. The poor, poor girl.
How she wants to speak to them, scream it into their souls, ”He’s there, can’t you see him, oh, can’t you?!”
I saw his muddy hands on the porcelain.
And then, one day, she falls in love, but this man’s not there, not like the stranger outside. He has curls like autumn and eyes that shine like crystal linn; a grin broader than the universe in it’s entirety. But he tells her to take walks, along the beach; on the city pavement, to see the lights and the people, but all she sees is him.
So she shrieks to her beloved, again and again.
I can’t go out no more,
There’s a man outside my door.
In a raincoat, smoking a cigarette.
But she’s fallen so hard for the boy in her mind that she doesn’t realize it’s the scary man; he’s crawled deep within her thoughts, to trick her, to frighten her.
To kill her.
Aaylah’s shaking so hard and her pulse multiplies by the minute. She wants to get away, but she hears the scratching on the oaken door, the shaded windows, so all she does is scream.
You can run, but we’ll find you.
There are faces and voices and sounds surrounding her, but she can’t set herself free; there is no escape of this torture.
She even wakes one morning, in a pretty white room, just like the one from her childhood, with the easels and oilettes. There are nice men and women who hide their shame and ‘tsks’, but it’s all the same, always the same.
The hospital bed is set across from a window that seems to go on forever, the brown, dirtied coat imprinted in her eyes.
”Did I tell you I can’t go out no more?
There’s a man by the door,
In a raincoat.”
There are bloody crescents on her palms, crimson dripping from her bitten lip; she's wishing so hard it hurts.
Stil there still there still there.
And suddenly, finally, a gift from paradise, her shallow pants gives way to eternal unconscious.