To her

Crying myself to sleep, weeping to console myself beyond the safety of plausible deniability. The charades of youth are gone. The flirty whispers ended at one-thirty. My head spins, cataloguing sins as defined by my captors. Invisible faces; visible images terrorising my self-gratification. Didn't think I was mental enough

for compulsory treatment, yet they seem hell-bent on forcing a 'cure' on me nonetheless.

That's stigma. Too chicken to talk to me, but hiding cameras in my smoke detectors and bugging my phones: That's the surveillance state. Or is that just delusional? I can't get a straight answer, So I write with my blood. Who cares? Ultimately, my pain is mere squiggles that history will forget. But, alas, we still haven't truly met. Amanda Riddell November 2024