I twirl the cord between my fingers covered with finger paint
from art therapy, and I beg my father as I cling to the receiver.
I wail into the hard plastic attached to the nurse’s desk.
‘Phone time is up’ someone says and a man with a sweat ringed
collar and a thin goatee pins my body to the carpet under the
fluorescents. There is a sharp bite of a needle below my waist,
and my eyes are full of cobwebs. I am alone in a black edged
room lit only by a square window cut in the door. I writhe in my
blankets swaddling me like an infant left out on the concrete floor.
The camera rolls in the corner of the room as I cry for the
embraces of my mother, cry for my favorite doll resting on my
starched hospital blanket down the hall, cry to go home. My
voice echoes off the navy pads that line the walls, ricocheting
off the camera lens. The little red light stays steady, never
wavering in the darkness with its cool, clinical gaze. The blankets
tighten as my body squirms in the gloom, and something inside
says, "You are home.”
R. M. Davenport graduated from the University of Maine at Machias with a background in creative writing. She lives openly as a queer woman who is focused on tackling difficult conversations around trauma, poverty and mental illness through the arts. She has recently had work featured in issues of the San Antonio Review, Feels Blind Literary, and the Rockvale Review.
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