"I Am"

You are the scars of your life, or so Adam says. I can still feel him beside me; hand snaked into mine like the homemade cookie dough I use to eat before calories were uncool. Now I am a void in the world, a galaxy sitting beside other galaxies waiting to let their black holes spill out and embarrass them.

This is what I have become, a Joan of Arc wannabe, institutionalized in the nicest forms. The staff calls it Clear Water; this small army of Subdefectives calls it Leech Lake. We are a circle of blue jeans worn heavy in the knees; already old hookers in the eyes of our therapist. Our sins simply survival tactics she calls delusions.

We are the smallest section of the library normal people avoid. Special cases other patients snicker at. No one respects the delusionals, not even to their face.

I am Joan of Arcadia, and socially insane. God works in funny ways – and I should know, I've met him.