Psychosis of the West

It is not my place, if I must be true to myself. It is someone else’s playground; in fact it is a place for most of the other children, but not me and my disorder. I can play along to their games. I can keep up and dance and sing with the other children. I can look the part, but I cannot feel it.

At sunrise I sat up and smiled. The smell of a far off fireplace still tainted the air. The morning song of the magpie mixed with the gentle cool breeze. A lizard, noticing my sudden change in state, quickly swagged off of my tummy and into the long grass – causing me to giggle. I could taste honey.

By mid morning I could talk, but my smile had gone. I can’t remember if I left it by the little creek where I tried to catch that yabbie or if it slipped and fell under a rock while I chased centipedes on that hill face. I wonder if it is the hill or the creek or maybe if it’s the other boys and girls that are laughing at me now. Maybe it is all of them or maybe none. That would be a question regarding my importance.

Lunch time was a promise, but came too late. Hunger turned into sickness and I ate until I got a tummy ache. Nobody noticed because I only had a grimace left in my smile’s absence. One expression to explain everything. No-one understood me at lunch. But they never understood me at mid morning.

“How could you lose your smile?” they laughed, “And why would you do silly things like climb the farmer’s fence to get down the creek or risk the pinch of a centipede? Are you crazy?”

And they would continue and continue until I sat in the playground and danced and sung and would do what it was to look the part. But it is not my place. My place doesn’t have posts and swing and slides and monkey-bars and chatter and chatter and pointing and laughing children. My place has old things and smells like sunrise. My place stole my smile.