MIE CUPA

I don't have to ask. Somehow I just know. It might be in the way she doesn't try to hide her tears. It may be in the way her right fingers keep playing with her gold wedding ring. Or maybe it's how she smiles painfully when asked if she's alright. Whatever is may be, I just know. Mie Cupa "I did it to myself".

It's what I can read in her eyes. It's the same mantra of my own inner demons. I've been there, I'm still here. I'm laying right beside her. My secret still unknown. I'm the watchful eyes that observes her every move. Even the doctors don't see what I see. They never will. They're doctors. Not crazy like me.

We share a ward, she and me. We have different beds and different tales. But here we are. Two pitiful patients with a bandaged wrist to tell our stories.

Here I am, watching her, my very own soap opera. They say I'm crazy. Maybe I am. But she's not. She's just struck dumb with her secrets, just like me. I've decided to play along with the lot of them. Bang my head here or there. Throw a tantrum when I desire. Beat up other patients. In worse cases, try to take my life.

The latter is common these days. I do it just so I can meet her. This woman with the gold wedding ring. The one without visitors. The one who has caught my eyes and stirred up emotions I thought I had never had.

Her painful smiles squeeze my heart so fiercely I have to look away. But not for long because I can't spare a moment of not seeing her. Her beauty has become a drug to my insanity. I'm not crazy but Mie Cupa "I did it to myself".

My facade has gone on long enough. I'm the pathetic attention seeker too weak hearted to try to get better. I've resigned myself to my fate of depressive phases. I've lost my way over the years and reality seems too obscure to me. Well, until I met her.

Her tears run down her cheeks like the Nile and I want to wipe them away. But alas! The nurses are watching. 'The crazy man cannot do that.' They think I'm dangerous. The pack of them! But Mie Cupa "I did it to myself".

Now all I do is stare and as I'm being led out to my mental jail, the ward for my kind. I plot my next suicide mission. Maybe a stab to my thigh. Or a drug overdose.

While I drag my feet away from her. I cannot help but wonder, maybe I'm crazy after all. Anyways, what's new? It still lies a sad case of Mie Cupa. For I, Andy McBelth, did it to myself.