By HLR
Four dents — subtle trenches
dug into the landscape of her head.
Remember when everyone was obsessed
with that game, Fruit Ninja? She used
to play it with her nephew, their index
fingers slashing fruits, frantic
to produce cartoon juice, racing
against the clock. One morning
she grabbed the carving knife
from the drawer & tried
to split her skull apart, as if
it were a watermelon, desperate
to ‘get the badness out’. Needless
to say, in her psychotic state
she didn’t achieve her goal
of removing her brain from her skull
that day. The sharp side sliced her
hair wherever the blade
landed & she was left
with little tufts sticking up
& out for months afterwards,
which made her feel silly
(her hair did, not the fact that she
had casually attempted
a DIY lobotomy).
This one was difficult
to explain to the psych team —
how hot blood was
not enough; she wanted
to hold her dark matter
in her trembling hands,
then bag & bin her
insanity. She sometimes runs
her chewed fingertips
over the remains of that day —
Fruit Ninja long uninstalled
from her iPad, nephew
grown into a man
now, the badness still
entirely present.