Yellow leaves clung to the branches of bony trees. In the back of the police cruiser, my wrists were
red from handcuffs. Raw red like roses, strawberries. The cops found me hanging upside down
from the apartment building’s balcony by my ankles, caught in the railing. Had to use the cherry
picker to get me down. I was naked, warm. They made me change into sweats before they
handcuffed me, said they’d take me to the nearest city psych ward. The only ambulance in town
was busy—small town Sunday, Bills game. I asked for a pencil and scrap of paper. I wanted to
write a letter to my grandpa, to record the sound my brain was making. Clanging, it sounded like,
steel on steel in my eardrums. The cops said no, to sit still until the hospital, it’d be an hour’s drive.
I tried to imagine steel drums instead of crashing beams. It was night and my grandpa had been
dead for 18 years.
                                                                                    *
The radio crackled with cop chatter. Through the window, the moon looked like a big tortilla,
which reminded me I hadn’t eaten in a week. Food was an enemy. Sleep was another. Songbirds
were friends carrying messages, telling me to call out of work and shave my body, so I could slide
faster down dewy, grassy hills. Caterpillars were friends too. I had collected three caterpillars in
the garden, carried them into my room, and set them in a large Tupperware with crushed barbecue
chips and a ramekin of water. I wanted to molt and emerge with wings. I was sick of not living
with the dragonflies flying beyond the treetops, touching down on porches. I felt hot light behind
my retinas. Groves of trees shot past the cruiser on the country road.