The Girl with Sixteen Personalities

Black silhouette
Against the falling snow,
At a crooked angle to the sky,
Saying nothing;
Foreign voice on the telephone,
Insinuating,
Making threats;
Crackle in the brain,
Stab in the chest;
There are things here
Of which we must not speak,
Or they will punish us,
For they know our names.

Numbers, numbers, wherever I turn,
Meaning everything and nothing!
In dreams I am falling down a spiral staircase…
Lying sleepless, I listen to trains in the distance
And try to imagine I am someone somewhere else.
There was a book I once had when I was small,
Filled with hideous pictures of circus freaks;
I was terrified and fascinated,
I wanted to destroy it, to throw it on the fire,
But I did not dare,
And I could not keep away from it,
Praying all night to God,
“Please, don’t make me a dwarf!”


Teeth grind in the dark, I don’t know why,
Spelling out “lobotomy”…
Why did I break that window?
It never did anything to me.
I blink and see water pouring out of a rock,
And bloodstains on the snow…

The others tell me what to do,
They argue amongst themselves.
Anger is purple and red.
Love is blue.

Music hurts too much inside,
So beautiful, it just makes me more alone;
I had to give up the piano.

I aim for the doorway and run into the wall.
Life floats just out of reach.
I walk beside myself, watching every twitch and stumble.
At night there are jungle drums in my blood;
I think I was born in Africa.

Having lived a thousand years
I must have done something,
But I cannot remember,
All a blur.

The door to my parents’ room opens ;
In the darkness, there are noises,
Monsters in the big bed, hurting each other…
I turn and tumble down the stairs,
Over and over,
Out of the sky.

A shrill laugh rises higher and higher,
Holding my head underwater.

Tobogganing in winter,
Down the big hill glittering in the sun,
Everything was white and still,
Everything was flying.

I woke up naked, slumped over the piano;
I had played all night, in my sleep.

Memories hang from the branches in the forest,
Where the hunted fox sings out his death.

I drive my car with no hands on the wheel.
I have no objections to crashing.

There are so many of us
And all so very jealous,
All so close and so far apart,
Ready to fight to the death for our independence.
We each have our magic, our spells to cast,
And each has his enemy to love.

A sudden silent blow from behind
Snaps my chicken neck;
Something new emerges from the wound,
Splits off and goes its own way,
Happy to be strange.

I pull the bedclothes over my head,
So the moon will not find me.
Suddenly I am a drunken policeman
Dragging a dead body out of the river;-
I think I recognise the face…

Rainbows shimmer in the room.
Broken crockery floats in the air.
Time stops and starts.
Glass smashes.
Everything is being dragged
Into the whirlpool at the end of the road.