A pastor in his early twenties. The Bible spread on a podium. Hallelujah! Roaring cheers. Music and swaying bodies all around. What are they doing? Going to the altar for healing, Mom says. Some of them are amputees awkwardly navigating the pews on crutches or wheelchairs. Are we going up there? Mom asks, do you think you need healing? I go quiet and watch the pastor anoint heads with oil. Arms flailing in the air. The vibrations of stomping feet. I’m laughing, and I don’t know why I’m laughing.
Hours later, I’m outside the tent, the cool air of the night nipping my legs. I see Mom opening the driver’s door to the car. We’re leaving? Yeah, she says. You come back to yourself? I ask her what she means. She laughs. You started dancing during the service. Guess you got so into it, you blacked out. You kept talking to everyone. You don’t remember? I don’t, but I also don’t feel like it’s strange.
Mom’s away. We’re playing at the edge of the staircase. Rock music synced to clips of cartoons. We run up the staircase. Tumble back down. The family dog eyes us like we’re crazy. I ask her why she’s such a buzzkill. She scoffs at me. They tell me that it’s a very good thing that I can talk to her. It’s a very good thing that I can notice things most people don’t.
Sam. I call them that for the first time four years later. I talk to them. Sometimes they’re a boy like me. Sometimes they’re wolves. They’re everything I wish I could be. Smarter. More responsible. Happier.
Seven years later, I’m attending college for the first time. I’m almost to the breakroom when a student I share Gen Ed classes with steps out and asks for my name. I’m Chris, he says. It’s nice to meet you. He thanks me for some notes I’d written and shared with the class. I’m shaking. I drop my computer bag on the floor, then rush to the nearest restroom, tossing my hands around a sink and gasping for air. I’m too old to have this much anxiety. I try to force Sam to front, but to no success. I splash water on my face and dry it with some paper towel, then walk back to retrieve my bag.
Sam’s amazing, my first boyfriend tells me over a text message, but you’re just as amazing. You shouldn’t compare yourself to them. I tell them that it’s hard and that I don’t even understand what Sam is or why this has lasted for so long. Imaginary friends are supposed to go away. Maybe they’re some kind of demon, my boyfriend jokes. Not funny, I say.
In the years following, I am told stories about things I did or said that I don’t remember. I don’t challenge them. I stop seeing or hearing Sam months before a psychotic break lands me in therapy, and on a year and a half of Vraylar. I’m better at socializing. I’m responsible. Happier. You’re a lot like them now, the boyfriend tells me one day. I feel a kind of sadness that I can’t describe, but later hear more closely described while seeing a two-spirit man talk about their other soul on a reality television show. I absently wonder if that’s what I experienced, or am still experiencing but repressing. I decide that it’s better if it remains repressed, tucked away beyond my acknowledgement. A self-made healing after all these years, or a wounding.
Joshua C. Pipkins is a pushcart nominated poet based in Memphis, Tennessee.
Serotonin 