Twenty-Eight Days of Madness
Day 7: February 27, 1981

1.
Imagine you wake up one morning inside out.
Imagine you think no one can see you
unless you talk first.
Intrigued by the benefits of invisibility
you could remain silent for the rest of your life.
But you drive to work like any ordinary day.
Except someone else is behind the wheel
while you look out the back seat window
eyes without a face
ears listening to the space above
where the neck could be
your breath as disembodied from your lungs
as the wind.

If you spoke to someone
they would see you inside out
like a carcass of meat hanging
with all its organs exposed.
As if someone pulled off your skin
like a sweater or hose all turned out
with the seams showing.
Not a pretty sight by any means
so you say nothing.

2.
Imagine today, you don't go to the classroom
where you work as a one-to-one aide
for a profoundly retarded child
which in plain English means:
He is an 11-year-old boy
who can't speak and still wears diapers
and can't feed himself
so at lunchtime you ease small
pieces of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
his mother sends from home
into a mouth that cannot swallow
so the pieces stick in the hole of his cleft palate
and ooze out his nose mixed with drool.

You must record each drop of drool
with the counter on your wrist
and chart the exact number daily
watching the black line of the graph rise and rise
no matter how often you stroke his throat softly
like the chin of a cat cooing:
"Swallow, Jason, please swallow."

And when he has temper tantrums
he hits his fists again and again
against his face so hard he leaves
blue imprint of knuckle on each cheek
unless you restrain him which is quite hard
because you are 4 foot 10 inches tall
and he comes to your forehead.
Strong little bastard he grabs so tight
at your cunt and boobs hou see stars and angels.

3.
Imagine today instead, you go to the staff room
where newly elected "Ronald" bullshits
over the P.A. intercom his voice in the foreground
muffling the voices of the teachers
gossiping about their students
as if they were the static on the radio and not "Reagon."

On the large rectangular table in the center of the room
is a freshly baked pineapple cake
In your mouth its tartness dissolves slowly like aspirin.

The aide for the deaf children's classroomV comes in frantically waving her hands
because the substitute teacher has one arm
and cannot sign.
Like you she has no way to communicate
with the children she is supposed to teach,
to heal, supposed to mold
into a less offensive norm called "human."

4.
Imagine you leave the staff room
and still haven't spoken.
You walk to the gym. Like the kids
P.E. is your favorite period of the day
but no one is in there now.
You run around and around the black line
that defines the outside perimeter of the floor.
Running faster and faster until the gray-green walls
dissolve into the laughter of children playing at recess.

In the students' lunchroom
two sixth graders are popping corn
to be sold later in corrugated paper bags.
Pop, pop, pop you move your fingers in rhythm
imitating the dancing kernels in sign language
still unable to speak
But the children see you.
They know you are inside out--even without your words.

5.
Imagine you walk the halls
enter each classroom and say something
something important
something that has to be said to the teachers--
reinforcement for a good job done daily.
In each room the children are laughing and laughing
They are stars and angels.

Imagine in the nurse's office where a teacher has taken you
you lie in a dark room on a hard bed.
Everyone is trying to help.
you know now it was a mistake to have spoken at all.
Inside out with all your seams showing so ugly and red.

And imagine the teachers' concern
carves into you as if searching for the perfect cut of meat
A taste to dissolve their confusion
upon finding a new child among them
who dared to speak in a language
they could not reduce to the ABC's
They try so desperately to teach everyone!
Even the voiceless among them:
The deaf, the dumb, the diseased
and the mad!

wr. January 13, 1989
published from the manuscript, "As If A Word"

copyright 2003 Patricia J. McDonald