a - sy - lum
Evelyn B e nv i e
protection, shelter, safety
The voices in my head are planning an insurrection. It started when the angels came. They took me to Para-
dise and promised me so so so many things. But Paradise has padded walls and the angels’ hands are so so so
cold. I was happy down on Earth. I didn’t need the angels or the bells.
I didn’t need their ambrosia or their Grace.
The wings are white, the halls are white, my mind is so so so white. I cannot think in colors anymore. The
voices can and do and they still paint. I long to hold a brush again. I long to hold my mind in my own hands.
I wish I could remember the color of the sky.
We lived in a box with cut out windows and were happy. There were no bars but our hands. I could touch the
sky back then. The angels tell me the sky has not changed, but I cannot see it. I grew a garden of broken glass
and he picked me flowers every day. There are no flowers here.
There is no sky.
Fennel. Pansy. Columbine. Rue. I know I have forgotten one. Lavender? Rosemary? I cannot remember. I
think it was blue blue blue, so frail and sweet, like he said I was, like he said I was supposed to be. But then I
opened my mouth and the voices came out and he did not like me anymore.
I think it was my favorite.
I fear that I am drowning as only a fish can. I cannot breathe I cannot see I cannot speak oh God. They feed
me cotton gauze on sugared spoons. They say it won’t hurt a bit and it doesn’t but that is worse. I feel nothing
and suffocate in silence
But the voices scream.
He said it was for my own good but I am no good in here. The voices echo in the empty rooms, bounce off
cold walls and half-full pill bottles. Crescendo, crescendo. They echo and echo and I cannot hear the angels
over it. I try to stay within the lines, color within the lines, but the lines are uneven. I tell them the lines are
uneven, I tell them it’s all wrong. I tell them, and…
The angels let me paint my own lines.
They hand me a brush and a paper and a smile, and say it is to help me and it does. Their hands are warm and
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Cauldron Anthology