More Kids (Group Therapy Session 1)

A woman with a bright red dress and red pumps walks in. Her shawl is some tacky combination of psychadellic pastel swirls and some type of egyptian print. Her hair has been dyed and fried and from the looks of it so has her face: Lips pumped up so much she looks like one her paleonlithic ancestors. She takes a seat at the front of the room and places her expensive leather case on the floor, I believe it’s Gaultier. In her lap she left several thick manilla folders and folded her hands and looked around. Next to me was a very frail man with big teeth he kept looking at me and touching my shirt. His nails were long and fungus-like. He smiled when I smacked his hand away but he retreated back to his empty gaze. I looked across the room and there was Horus. He was on the bus when we came here and I tried to talk to him but he looked tired. Now he’s looking at me and I’m wondering if his stare would look better without a torso. Just his head and his legs. I look away shaking these thoughts.
“Okay,” the woman starts, “how’s everyone today.”
No one answers and instead distant shuffles and settling are crescendoed in the room. I look over towards the door and fold my arms. I am no longer a part of this group.
“Good. Let’s see since this is your first day I’ll explain our goals.” She stands up and walks over to the laminated white board which is placed behind her and begins to write, first “Goals” in black, and then “Conflict” in blue and finally “Resolution” in Red. All are in separated colums.

Horus across the room says, “How can you write goals first before conflict. How the fuck am I supposed to know what this shit is going to do for me if I can’t solve my “conflict”” Stressing the word conflict as if it were a word only created by this doctor. Silent laughter drifts the room.
“Good point Horus, but the idea here is to see that our goals should always be on top even though we are currently facing conflict.”
“Okay now that’s cleared up, My name is Dr. Gretchen VonKluge.” She says confidently. Someone coughs “fucking kike” but no one laughs or even acknowledges.
“We’re gonna start today’s session with introducing ourselves and evaluting each other because soon we will be in groups. And since Ronald has so much to say you’ll go first.”
“I ain’t saying shit you fucking Jew nigger.”
Dr. VonKluge says nothing but looks over at him with a gaze of nauthulance and caring.
She walks over lightly and whispers in his ear. the guy next to me leans in but I don’t think he can hear what she is saying. Dr. VonKluge stands up and walks back over to the board. Ronald now looks terrified and unsure.
“I’m Ronald.”
“And what else Ronald.”
“What the fuck else are you talking about. I told you my fucking name.
“Your age and what do you want to accomplish here.”
Ronald looks over at me and slithers his tongue and grabs himself. I look over and ignore him.
“I’m 16 years old and I want to fuck that bitch over there.” He says leaning back in his chair and pointing making obscence gestures with his fingers. Loud laughter tatters the room and
out of the corner of my eye I can see Horus settling in his chair uncomfortably. But I quickly look away.

On the walls are child drawings of families and little notes next to them saying familial things.
Preservation of life and “surviving the game” are common theme. On one wall is an acronymn of the word success and the title is “Seven Steps to Success Beginning with Success.” I looked around the room searching for Horus eyes to catch mine but they never did. In fact he kept his head down sloutching in thought.
In my mind there are things that remain unsettled and there are things depressed by the syringes of random medicines. Thoughts that I try to get to but are sheilded as if to say maybe next time. Maybe at a time when I’m not so doped up perhaps. I don’t know but I’m panic-stricken now because there are bouts of loud noises in the next room because we are next to one of the “quite” rooms that are not so quite. I think Tamika is in there now. Yesterday it was this new kid Martynas. He came with his faggot friend Dariusz.
There is an lustful rage in me to tear apart Horus body parts in individual groups and molest each part of them. Sodomizing his mouth with his penis and finger his rectum with my fingers. I can’t shake this urge and I ask to excuse myself.
Dr. VOnKluge start to say something but retreats and lets me go.
My intial intent was to go to my room to fall asleep but I remember Tamika and I go next door. There’s a nurse still in there and it looks like she’s giving her something in a syringe. Though Tamika is still fighting, the meds they gave her are starting to have an effect on her. Her arms a slumped and her body is haunhed so much that her head is almost touching her knees. The nurse gets up ready to go to the door and I move away.
“Hi,” she starts smiling. holding the syringe with needle up. She doesn’t wait for my reply and walks away. As the nurse walks away she locks the door. I tap on it. I look at her and see that she is too doped up to even realize that there is exsistence beyond the white walls. I walk away and retreat to my room. It has two beds. the other is empty but is made up. I’m guessing someone is moving in. My last roommate had nearly killed another inmate and she had to go to maximum security isolation. He’s in the hospital recovering from a dismembered jaw and his penis is severed. Funny I remember her being so nice. I never thought she would’ve done anything like that.

In my room there there is a small night stand shared between the beds and one dresser closer to the window which is bolted shut from the outside. When I first came here the curtains were closed and every morning when I wake up they are still closed. The shower is located just inside the doors. It is the first thing I saw when I walked into the room. On my first day after I had gotten out of the shower I asked he nurse for a ponytail holder and a comb and she said no. So now I sit here on this thin bed months later with scraggly hair and ashen eyes. I feel like I’m an old lonely woman who’s life has remained in the moment of depression and hopelessness.