Read Online What Does Blue Feel Like? by Jessica Davidson - Free Book Online

I stare,
    watching them patch me up,
    sew me back together.
    Mum buys takeaway Indian for tea,
    vegetarian.
    Tim says it was the cow’s revenge,
    but even he gags
    at the sight of the steak, the knife, the bench
    covered in my blood.
To be lonely
    Bronwyn asks about the bandage on my hand.
    She still worries about me, I think.
    She asks me to come to her place after school
    for a sleepover.
    I don’t know why, but I say yes.
    We read magazines, watch telly, eat lolly snakes.
    Sometimes I forget
    I’m not the only one
    who knows what it’s like
    to be lonely.
    We share a bottle of Baileys,
    drinking straight from the bottle.
    Bronwyn can’t drink like me.
    A few drinks and she’s drunk.
    She’s a sad drunk.
    I take her into the bathroom,
    help her brush her teeth,
    put her into bed.
    As I turn out the light, she says mournfully,
    â€˜Char? What happened? You used to be
    my best friend.’

Looking inside
    I should
    be having the time of my life.
    New boyfriend,
    reconciliation with an old friend,
    halfway through Year Twelve.
    But —
    there is a blackness inside,
    hungry
    yearning
    pulling at me.
    I sit on the train,
    watching people.
    A young girl with a black eye and smashed nose.
    A mother screaming abuse at her child.
    The kids who think it’s funny to kick the homeless man
    then run away, around the corner.
    The man on another corner with the heroin addict look.
    The girl in the reflection of the window
    with eyes so bleak I can’t believe they’re mine.
    If eyes are the window to the soul
    then mine must be empty.
    The voice in my head says that there’s enough despair in
    this world without one more hopeless case
    like me.

What for?
    I eat my vegetables, what for?
    I do my homework, what for?
    I’m polite to my teachers, what for?
    I don’t argue with my brother, what for?
    I iron my clothes and shower and brush my hair and hand
    in assignments and try not to fall asleep in class and think
    about what I’ll do next year and participate in this whole
    goddamn awful thing called life, and
    what the fuck for?

Healthy young girl
    I go back to the doctor’s
    for another prescription of knock-out pills
    so I don’t have to drink myself to sleep.
    He’s asking me a whole barrage of questions
    about school, and my parents, and how I feel,
    when I just want the goddamn pills.
    He insists on doing a physical,
    says everything’s fine
    and tells me he can’t prescribe me pills any more.
    â€˜It’s unnatural for a healthy young girl to need
    sleeping pills,’ he says.
    â€˜There must be an underlying reason you can’t sleep.’
    He gives me a referral to a ‘very nice woman who might be
    able to help’.
    â€˜A faith healer or shrink?’ I ask.
    He tells me if she thinks I need sleeping pills she’ll
    prescribe them.
    A shrink with a prescription pad, I guess.
    I want to scream.

Hit the fan
    When I get home
    Mum is screaming.
    She was cleaning my room
    and found the goodbye notes I’d written
    months ago,
    dropped under my bed.
    A knot grows in my stomach
    and a lump forms in my throat.
    The shit has hit the fan.
    She thinks I tried to slice my hand off on purpose.
    Thinks I tried to slit my wrist.
    She makes me sit in the kitchen until Dad gets home,
    like she used to when I was little and really in trouble.
    Dad turns pale,
    goes ballistic.
    Tim comes in to see what all the fuss is about
    and gets ordered out of the kitchen.
    I try to leave,
    get held back by my parents.
    They’re both crying.
    Now I really want to die.
    Mum grabs my handbag,
    rifles through it.
    Looking for drugs,
    I guess.
    She finds the referral from the doctor,
    screams even more.
    Dad whispers to Mum
    and walks out the door.
    Minutes later, there’s banging upstairs.
    Bang
    Bang
    Bang
    Bang
    He doesn’t come downstairs for ages.
    When he does, he’s carrying a box.
    They’ve found condoms in my room,
    and