Vignettes II

"There is no continuity to my subjective experience," I explain to the wall. "[white]," says the wall. When I recover some bits of myself, volatile bits, jumpy electric phenomena, the roaches in the duplex, the moldy smell of the bathroom, being so cold before school, waiting for the sun to come up, scared, too, but mostly cold, before the janitor got there to open up the gates, they become solid and present and I become volatile and mysterious. "This is why I must be suppressing the feeling of being oneself," I figure. "[white]," says the wall.

"I feel guilty, terrible, so guilty it lingers for days, spending money on groceries." The look she gave me across the table, kept at the ready with kleenex, disoriented me like an outsider's astonishment always had. "You feel guilty," she leaned a long time on the mouthy vowels of the word, "guilty about buying food?" She paused. "You don't have to feel guilty about buying food." Other people don't feel bad about buying groceries? You mean people just go to the grocery store and put things in their cart-- I guess I never use a cart, I guess those are there for those people who would just put things in a cart-- and it's okay? They don't feel guilty about it? "Oh, um--" I looked at my knees for thirty more minutes until she gently suggested I come in the same time next week.