Anything Goes : Few latest chapters from true crime, true life contemporary poetry collection "Desert Is A Quiet But Friendly Stranger" by Velvet Elle

The plot thickens

I am wearing wool socks

Outside my head not many things are going on in this shelter

Been walking without any kind of socks or underwear, as left in a hurry delivered to the doorstep in a police car, and surprisingly I feel much fuzzier and warmer, cosy even

I mean, as cosy as one can get under these circumstances

Actually, when I think about this, being here is a hoot

No, not really

But where else would I go, be?

So I just bite my tongue and accept the level of hoot around here

I am not really feeling any better, just wearing more make-up so people around me don’t look at me with such pity in their eyes today

I had flashbacks before falling asleep, not the worst kind, but again, about the time when I was unconscious and laid on the floor in my home, vomiting all over and feeling like it was the devil itself that raped me, leaving burn marks and bruises on my anorexic body

I would like to think, now I could come up with a pretty good fight, if it got down to it, but then I believe I had more than one guy involved in the drugging and raping so as sad as it sounds, the odds are I couldn’t resist them at all

Well, I know the consequences, don’t I

The very last memory I have before the date I was found (it was January 28th 2008) was New Years eve, I went clubbing alone and got home feeling totally free and happy, I didn’t even drink or smoke then, was pretty straight edge, only went dancing to let go from trapped energies jammed inside me from excessive working and printing photos in the darkroom and to consume few sodas

What is not known, describes the best as real true crime mystery

At some point during January, I don’t know who or when or where - I just know where I was found, at home - I had sent an email to mom that I was going to an exhibition opening and talked about knee high socks I was going to wear, which is pretty strange when you think about it, it was January after all - but then nothing

Mom had apparently tried contacting me for about a week, with no answer so she decided to call to the police

Which is something I am sometimes grateful for

She was instructed to call all hospitals first if an anorexic Jane Doe was there, but no

I was placed on the floor of my studio, paralyzed, with my phone next to me, that the police found later

And once she had rang the round, the cops started moving and mom knew I kept my spare keys in the corner pub resulting easier access to my studio

My sister’s fiancé tagged along with the cops per request and they first called my cell from the corridor, and it rang but no answer

They opened the door and I remember vividly how my brother-in-law later told me that one of the police had said ”There’s a corpse” meaning a little bump on the rug that was me

But my heart had kept on beating

No one knows how long I had been there

Maybe even all week since the last email

At some point I had managed to drink water so my blood sugar was the only test result that wasn’t almost zero

Apart from sky high CRP and fever

The doctors said to my mom on the phone, when I was taken in an ambulance to the nearest hospital’s emergency room that my heart shouldn’t have kept on beating anymore, that’s how badly things were

I cannot remember any of this

Nothing

Absolutely nothing

Blank

Black

My amnesia is 28 days, complete apart from few flashbacks where strange men are in my apartment who speak to me

The first thing I really remember was pain

Excruciating kind

My veins had all dried from the vomiting and as I was re-hydrated it hurt like hell

Though morphine was one of the liquids they injected into me

Drop by drop, the saline, antibiotics and morphine found their way through the tube into my system and the first night was so unbearably painful it’s a miracle I am not madder than this

I have blurry memories, not visual ones really apart from the saline drip and bags of liquid and people fussing around me, taking tests, talking

I could hear their voices, and understood mom was on the phone hearing the odds

Which were less than she would have liked to hear

If I pulled it through, I would very likely be a vegetable for the rest of my life and never walk again

This is true

On the 3rd day of laying in the torment my condition got worse

I floated outside my body and saw it from the distance trapped in the bed and wires and machines

In fact, that is pretty accurate as I wasn’t trapped, my body was

I could travel back and forth in time like a ghost moves in the attic

I wanted to die

I had refused to eat, the nurses tried feeding me but if I did take something in my mouth I didn’t swallow it

I just wanted to die

It hurt so bad

Not only my body, but being

It was this place with ten thousand spears, erect needles ready to pierce through me and my mind and they did

So what happened, was that as soon as I realized I can leave; I can travel in spaceless time and a place without other dimensions, I did

I saw this bright light, that tried to escape me but I reached it in the end, after chasing it around the unknown universes

And I saw entities there, they spoke to me

I cannot recall each word they said, but what was firm and undeniable I couldn’t change

It was not my time yet

So they didn’t let me in

Once I returned to my body my sister had brought me a card from my nephew, who was then few months old

She had drawn his tiny footprint on the blue cardboard and it said ”Get well soon, auntie”

I could read it and as soon as I recalled who he was, I remembered an oath I had made to him once he was still in my sister’s womb

I would not let my dad abuse him

I had spoken to him mentally when I saw the first ultrasound picture presenting him as a newcomer to this world

And I had sworn I would protect him at all cost

So it was highly inconvenient, if I died prematurely when he was just a baby

I started coming back from the shadows

I just exit the worlds without space or time and bodies and immortality and came back

It sounds a lot easier than it was

But I came back with a miracle

My legs started feeling things

And I could move them

I was no longer paralyzed from waist down

The nerve connections went on again

And the next day I was removed, set free from the monitors and drips, placed on a wheelchair and pushed to the back of an ambulance

It took me to mental hospital

19.


The first morning as someone who hears voices

I slowly gained consciousness, looked around me, had no idea where I was and then my body

I screamed

I was this skeleton covered with skin that had scars and looked like it was a battlefield of life and death and in a way, true

There are no accurate descriptive words or paragraphs, lines how it feels like to wake up from a month long amnesia and short period of veggie-state, having no recollection whatsoever what had happened, what year it was and more importantly; who I was

As my sight glided on the remains of me I noticed this bracelet on my left wrist that had letters on it, they had secured me with that when I entered the hospital which included a name - rang a bell, but not really more than a distant memory- and two set of dates

My first thought was that January 28th 2008 was the day I died and was at the morgue

I didn’t remember anything

Really, I was blank

Wiped, erased

One of the staff at the morgue brought me towels and breakfast, so I figured I wasn’t maybe dead at all or then dying is a slower process I had previously thought and includes these applications and test drives first

Two breads had cucumber and cheese on them, also had tea

I think paprika was involved as well

After consuming my first meal I still sat on the bed, and threw myself on the ground by sheer accident

I didn’t know my legs didn’t function like they used to, but I had a drive to walk, stand up

So I got up from the floor and did that

Step, by step, I physically departed from death towards shower

I was instructed not to look in the mirror

Of course I looked in the mirror

And started crying

Even with massive bruises and rash on my cheeks and chin I was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen

It was the first and last time when I truly saw me, and I don’t mean I was remarkably pretty, I just knew it was me

Water hurt my arms and palms, the bad nerve damage done didn’t arrive without special gifts such as the ability to feel traumatizing pain while washing myself

My mom was there to greet me when I was ready and we started walking

I noticed through the windows it snowed, so I was sure it was the winter

Bit by bit I tried to gain some kind of information on the situation but in front of me, doors opened

And I was escorted inside a mental hospital ward

Doors behind me closed
And were locked

From that on, I was no longer the same person I had the pleasure of knowing for about an hour who ate her breakfast and drank tea

Immediately as I entered there, a sick nurse started bullying me and a bigger male patient threw me to a wall

One day, my roommate tried to strangle me

I had to keep on sleeping in the same room as she

My knowledge, however, expanded

I was told who I was, what I did, where I lived and what year it really was as I was still a bit skeptical about the date on the bracelet

I learned, that I was a 21-year old photographer talent living in ( beep ) and was preparing my capital debut exhibition from black and white photographs

Okay

Also I learned I loved clothes

I still remember, when my mom delivered me my own personal items and rags to wear outside the hospital pyjama, that moment when she pulled out a black, massively pouffy tulle tutu

And ankle boots with 12 cm heels

I couldn’t really walk at all yet, but I practiced it listening to Blondie from my iPod

So the heels were a nice challenge outside in the snow

It took me years to change that style, only started wearing Dr. Martens when I moved back to my hometown later and once had to paddle through 50 meters of snow that reached my upper thigh wearing stripper boots

Me 0 - Snow 1

My auditory hallucinations started really bothering me inside the ward

Like they were guiding me away from harm

20.

There’s some sick desperation in my presence right now

I am wearing yesterday’s make-up with yesterday’s hairdo and dress

I changed pants, as if I’d be trying to assure people here that I am fine

I’m far from it

I don’t know where I am going to live; what place, town, city or galaxy to inhabit

Something tells me I need more help than previously demanded - with these specs it might not come as a surprise

One thing though I don’t want myself to present as is a failure

Someone who has given up all hope, someone who just decides to sit still where it’s the nearest seat and stay there for the rest of my days

By failure I mean also how I see myself right now

And I don’t like it at all
I haven’t remembered to eat for example; I am feeling dizzy and nauseous

Like who forgets to eat?

Yesterday I bit few snacks during the day and that’s it

I don’t even remember when I last ate a proper meal

Could have been about a week ago

Sandwiches rule!

So does juice

Been drinking plenty of that

Even though I clearly understand I should eat; I don’t

Not my intention to starve all the crap and traumas and bad experiences out of me, just don’t feel like eating at all

During my hypomanic phases I am jolly good and people around me suffer

I have short fuse with dynamite-like explosion

Haven’t sold my granny yet on the black market though for the highest bidder, so all in all that doesn’t bother me really, maybe it should

It’s the depression that sucks in this disease

Right now I am neither and both

How come I can feel this deserted

Empty and without contain or purpose

Like a dove that has delivered her last message I just wait to be guillotined by time

Sail under million stars that none guide the direction home

Or even elsewhere

Yesterday the crescent moon told me it’s time to harvest

And I have nothing to be reaped

Next winter, is going to be lonely and cold

Only my mice and me have a ball in a house I could afford

And egocentric taxman tells me I haven’t given enough

Not many things can arrive or leave from this black hole I am in

Even light bents to unnatural proportions and becomes horrifyingly distorted

Like a corpse who had a heart attack on its way down from 20th floor I feel I am already dead

When the time comes

I have been thinking about getting a tattoo

So far I have none

It’s not the pain or forever-aspect I fear in those but giving away too many clues what I am like

I am not trying to be a mystery, closed book, nothing like that

I just don’t want to show any telltale signs I am a person and not just a shell

Every time I’d see my tattoo, it would remind me of that

The contrast might some days be too much

My current favorite idea are letters on knuckles, the badass I am

Inked words ”Mercy” and ”Grace” to both hands

Or my deepest, uttermost fantasy that ”It’s all grace”

When right now, it is really difficult to believe in that

Or anything in fact

I look like a country singer from the 80s, I am growing my hair as a costume I can wear

And my little eyes peek under pink massive heavy fringe like two mushrooms through concrete climbing towards the sun

I feel closer to suicide today than on those really tormented, dissociative nights when I prayed God that he’d exist, swore I would get to him unless he’s real, slice him with a samurai sword and feed his head to pigs

I am working, in the piece a doll-like figure is crucified head down in a winter forest with a bucket full of blood coming from her hands

It doesn’t ease my decision, to yes or no, that I am still alive and with some tiny prospects one day it being okay

Internal war is its peak and I know a choice is near, like church bells from the distance my death announces firmly it cannot wait much longer

I can see myself with a needle rolled gently from my right hand, my head arranged in the middle of puke mousse

Eyes like glass, eyes like antique teddybear’s I have taken one long last look

But what would it be

I am scared to address what I am really going through as my emotional vitals cannot really take it still

I see my spirit dancing on Scandianvian breeze wearing nothing but laurel wreath

My oxygen is running out, panic attack is rising

Or then it’s just the gas chamber I am in

I just want to go

21.

Spotify 2021 unwrapped

”Unboxing my favorite music, sponsors welcome”

I am sure that’d be a YouTube hit, especially with these boomer specs and hips

My top 1 artist was The Beatles fourth year in a row

Also guest starring Roy Orbison in top 5

Disco tune ”Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” by McFadden & Whitehead was the most played song and I am feeling fucking awful, like gagging blood almost, that difficult it is to be right now, like just even breathing feels like a task I am not fit to perform

There’s literally nothing that would cheer me up

Nothing

Maybe briefly, but the things that might have the power to lift the spirits are rare to come by even for few seconds

In the long run there’re zero joys that last, make the days count and me not counting the days

I am pissed to the bone, mad at world, God, existence, everything

Actually I am furious, my faith is under test right now

Being somewhat religious, me breaking up with God even briefly hurts as a thought, as he has saved me so many times

Prevented me from doing harm, be it addiction or dying

But he hasn’t been able to shield me from the nasty face of life

I used to do pills, all sorts that made me high

My favorites are Xanor, Temesta and Lyrica

Mixed with cocktails, stirred and with olives

Haven’t been doing them recently or excessively, just the regular doses prescribed to me

My desert is deep violet and I hear the white doves calling my name

They promise to take me high as a kite and let me down with grace once it’s time

They are lies, all lies

I have known my doves by their first names for years, and they always come back to me

Like an amusement ride it’s not the beginning, but the end that kills you always wanting one more

And in time, I am just a whore

Beginning to understand the depths of my own despair I glance at the horizon, storm’s coming, it makes the water running under bridge I am standing on fractal-like maze coloring the water ink blue and pink

Aurora borealis cry symbolically, somewhere behind me, painted on the sky, but I choose not to look at them, I have seen them before, I have seen this bridge before, I have heard these songs before, and I have taken too many painkillers before

I know how it ends, it ends with me dying

In any case, the worst and the best case scenario are absolutely the fucking same, they just take more or less time

I can’t sleep or be awake, so the very handy packet-deal in the form of a heavy morphine dose seems convenient and alluring

Not happy the way things are going, I took few Xanors and a nice big bowl of strong coffee, that should do the trick for this evening and tomorrow my body will be craving for more, I just can’t take this, any of this

It can seem pretentious, my pain, like on paper things are not ”that bad”

I have roof over my head and tummy full of food, I know

Those should be the basics, for everyone

Everything else just extra, fancy toppings

I dream about living very modestly, like I do, I have to, but like maintaining happiness through good relationships with humans and God, volunteering, doing what needs to be done, occasionally watch tv and pray

I have no people to form relationships with and I have never set up a television

I remember the time, in 2008 soon after I left the mental hospital, when I started doing benzodiazepines frequently, and handfuls at once

Just wanted it all to go away, and it did but came back with a bullet

I used to go clubbing wearing Victorian top hat, knee high stripper boots, leather skirt and skinny vest, accessories including mischievous grin and leather gloves, when I was really skinny I was a looker I think, and young

I looked like a 6th grade school boy with no hips

I drank everything and did everything offered

Blow, hash, weed, pills… sometimes all at once

The hallucinations I got were less terrifying than the voices I had started hearing few months back

I was prone to accidents and once woke up from a different town I had passed out in

I took way too many on a train and woke up the next day at a liquor store with mom

I was so out of it that I had no recollection whatsoever how I had ended up there, left the train, went to bed, slept, woke up the next day

And of all the places where my conscious decided to join me was the liquor store

That was the beginning of an end

I knew I would either die to them or get clean

So I did

The phase lasted for about 18 months, when I was a mess for doing substances, each day claiming it would be the last until the withdrawal

Then it would just become another day when I said to myself it was temporary and I was in control

I wasn’t

I seriously wasn’t

But wasn’t in control of life either, even at the very least

There’s no way back, and the road in front of me is made out of broken promises, empty painkiller bottles and going to bed fearing and hoping it’s a heart attack where the palpitations will lead

It’s a contradiction, when I am high and happy, I sustain, I endure

And once my heart starts feeling like it’s wobbling all over the place in my chest, I get a panic attack

What if I’d die painfully and wasn’t in control of it

For someone, who claims to be only slightly neurotic control freak, this is quite rich of me, I think

Like of all the luxuries world has to offer, I just want a peaceful death

Not Louis Vuitton-bags (I think they’re tacky), 900 dollar dishes, not even love necessarily, just a peaceful and neat death

Somehow, I think that’s the very least I should be entitled to as me