White

White is the colour of the hospital room that is my sanctuary and my hell. It is the colour of the psychiatrist’s  coat, and her teeth bared in a brilliant, patronizing smile. The words that run through my mind, pushing and pushing until it hurts, until all I want to do is let it out, every syllable, but I don’t, but I won’t.
To speak would be a betrayal of him. To speak would make it real.
Reality would tear everything apart.
Rooms are white. Coats are white. Teeth are white. Words are white.
Pain is white.
Memories, the ones you press deep into the darkness of your mind, are white.
Little angels kneeling among white flowers in this graveyard light with white sadness, are white.
The last time I spoke, I stared straight into my mother’s eyes and said, watching the whiteness in her eyes blur and fall, “I hate that colour.”
The last time I screamed, I watched the milkiness in my brother’s eyes light and fade. I saw the contrast between his pale skin and the darkness. I heard the soft whisper of breath as it left his white lips stained red.
Blood on the snow.
Why is it so much easier to see just the snow?

{i)
“You know the angels they tell us about, sister? You know those skies and gates in heaven Mother tells us about? You know Heaven, sister? The priest says that when I die, I will go to heaven, and I will see again.”

Why could you not have remained in darkness for awhile longer, brother?


“Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it. Don’t be like them, sister. Don’t tell me that you know what I want, what I feel. Don’t look me in the eye when I talk to you and say you know who I am.”

I understand you now, brother. I know what it is like to talk and have no-one listen to what I say. I see why, nearing the end, you stopped speaking altogether.


“Everything in the world comes down to hate, sister. Everything you do comes down to hate. How you hate the world, how you hate the people, how you hate yourself. There is no right and wrong, black and white, good and evil. There is no Heaven and Hell.”

Did you hate that world that condemned you to darkness? Did you hate the society that saw you as only one more faceless, helpless ‘disabled person’? Did you hate yourself because you hated them?
Brother, did you love me?


You will be all right, sister. I swear it. And I will see you again. And maybe in that time, we will both be whole, we will both be real.
This world is a stage, and to live, you must act until everything, including yourself, is forgotten.
I can’t do that. Forgive me.

How could I not?

The sirens are in the distance, but I don’t hear them. The eyes of my parents float before me, but I don’t see them. The pain of death grips me, but I don’t feel them.

Your voice is soft in my ear, and I listen to your grief. Your knees hit the dirt in front of me, and I look into your clear bright eyes. You weave Peace around me, and I feel your sadness.


I remember that you were the boy no-one else could see.
I remember playing with you before the angel among the flowers.
I remember you knelt before every fresh new grave.
I remember your telling me you were……

“Welcome home, sister.”

“Hello, brother.”