Alice, Alice quite unbalanced
How does your brain stand still?
With yellow pills and electric chills
And doctors sharing each blow.
*
15/03/2023
Alice sat on the steps of the warn backyard veranda, knees tucked firmly under her chin, one hand hanging porously, the round ashen tip of a fast-burning cigarette gently brushing the flecks of blue chipped paint below her bare feet. The haunting innocence of a fresh spring sun beat unabashedly through gaps in the thicket of her mother’s overgrown garden, a delicate wind, directing strands of her hair in a circular dance with the thin spirals of slow-moving smoke. The trellis of white jasmine bordering their property had managed to invade not only the neighbour’s side of the rotting wooden fence but also the territory of their red roses. Now, green thorned stumps and a scattering of shrunken petals are plastered in the drying dirt. The baby wattle tree where they had buried her childhood dog ten years ago had grown wildly tall and menacing, its thick trunk crushing against the old tin shed. Rough roots savagely tore up the surrounding soil, and dark green leaves cast darkness over the starving veggie patch; the flesh and bone of the dog had fed it well.
19/04/2014
‘Well Alice. One pill will make you big, and one pill will make you small.’
‘Oh Alice, have you been crying again? What happened to that beautiful smile?’
‘Alice is very sick. She can no longer make her own decisions. But don’t worry, we’ll take very good care of her.’
15/07/2015
Fraudulent, Fraudulent, Fraudulent.
You are fraudulent and fictitiously fractious.
You fumbling fool, who fumes and fights,
with feeble flaming fury, forcefully frail.
Fucked fiend, falling faintly forwards,
forever fractured, foaming faintly, flying forlornly.
With facetious fistfuls of forced fiery fortune,
you float, flatly, firmly, familiarly, fighting the façade of fleeting finality.
1/12/2014
‘Alice?’
‘My name’s Sarah. Let me show you where your room is so you can settle. I’ve just got a bit of paperwork for you to sign and then I’ll have to go through your belongings.’
‘You can shut the door if you like. But it doesn’t lock, I’m afraid.’
‘Seems like you came prepared. I’ll have to take your phone charger though. If you need it charged, just head over to the nursing station and they’ll do it for you.’
‘I’ll also need to take your pencil case. Sorry, darl. If you want to do some drawing or anything, there’s a communal art table and you can ask a nurse for necessary supplies.’
‘All meals are served through the window we just passed, and if you want tea or coffee at any time, you can just knock on the window.’
‘Meds are through that door there. Eight a.m. and eight p.m., or as otherwise charted by your doctor.’
‘We’ve got two shared bathrooms if you need a shower. And there’s a linen closet just outside your room here.’
‘There’s also a courtyard that can be accessed between eight a.m. and eight p.m.’
‘That’s about it, I think. The doctors should be around to review you later today. If there’s anything you need in the meantime, just let me know or press that call bell beside the bed.’
‘Do you have any questions?’
3/01/2017
It was three a.m. on a Tuesday, and Alice was standing, blurry-eyed, on the corner of King Street, her rainbow mini-dress twisted unevenly around her torso like the pungent pink of overstuffed intestines. Steadying her hands, she licked her pinkie finger and shoved it into the tiny bag, desperately clawing to gather the remnants of coke under her uncut nail. She was already numb from nose to chin, the bitter drip of the last bump lingering playfully in the back of her throat. A few steps from her, Connor was engaged in polite conversation (valiantly hustling for more coke) with an older gentleman.
Alice watched them closely, teeth chattering in the warm breeze as tiny granules of moisture began sprouting like freshly planted seedlings along her goose-bumped shoulders. Hearing her heartbeat rise like the mirage of a ghost, she pulled her dress down further, fumbling to unhook the contorted wiring of her straggly laced push-up bra while she stumbled towards Connor and the man.
‘You looking for a sugar baby? or a night of fun?’ I grinned, eyelids batting with the violence of a paper cut.
The man looked at me, his calculating gaze moving humidly over my exposed body like a ripe slug in a garden of fresh lettuce.
‘What are you? Like sixteen? I don’t fuck minors.’ His tone insinuated otherwise.
Connor chuckled, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling my dress up slightly as he did.
‘Sorry about her, she’s just had a bit to drink. We have a deal or what?’ He flashed his preppy boy smile, unfolding two crumpled fifties between his fingers.
‘It’s two hundred and fifty dollars a g.’
‘You tryna make a sale or what? I don’t see anybody else hanging round tonight, do you?’ Connor gestured at the empty street, lit only by the unsteady flashing lights of the 7/11 across the road and an occasional passing Uber.
The man turned back to me, and this time, I could taste his intentions, sticky and thick like a rotting yellow banana.
‘So, how much you charge princess? Maybe we can sort something yeah?’ Suddenly feeling hot, I tugged weakly on the edge of Connor’s shirt.
’You ok baby?’
‘Dunno. My head feels funny. Can we go home now?’ I tugged harder.
‘Yeah, yeah, after this. You’ll feel better after you have a sniff. Promise.’
‘Didn’t answer my fucking question. How much for a go of your little fuck toy?’ The man moved closer, reducing the space between us to the frailness of a butterfly wing.
‘Not for fucking sale,’ Connor spat.
The man scowled. I felt my toes curling against the warm bitumen as he lunged towards me with the agility of a mad cow, his chubby sandpaper fingers lovingly squeezing around my neck, pathetically trapping squeals of horror between the purple plum juice of my swollen tonsils. The smell of cigarettes and street piss warmed my belly as I wriggled weakly for clean air, swaying alone in a familiar tickling ecstasy. Reaching with his other hand, he shoved a small, bulging plastic bag into my bra, cruelly twisting it against the fleshy metal of my pierced nipple. Then giving it a gruelling flick before relinquishing his grip with a sour laugh.
‘Keep your fucking slut in check then.’
Connor gritted his teeth, unclenching whitening knuckles to release the cash squished between them, allowing it to snake serenely down into the leaf-strewn gutter.
I coughed, wiping the drops of water that had flown in linear yellow rivulets from my eyes to my lips.
*
15/03/2023
Feeling a heavy clang, Alice averted her gaze downwards. The hot glass of her phone screen scoured her mottled palms while she peered intently at Kyle’s message, flashing a steady neon green against the rose-patterned screensaver.
Kyle
Hey Al, you at Mum’s?
Alice
Yeah, got here last night.
Yards an absolute bloody mess
Kyle
Haha, that’s mum for ya
Alice
Forgot what it was like living here, lol
Kyle
Yeah
Guess none of us really realised
How bad it was getting, I mean.
Figured she would’ve called if she needed help.
27/08/2014
Alice, Alice we’re all mad here.
Alice, Alice can’t you hear?
Alice, Alice please come home.
Alice, Alice you’re all alone.
12/05/2016
‘SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. MUM!’
My foot connected loudly with the brittle bones of my bedroom door. A snowy cascade of powdered plaster decorated my black boots as it crushed through the cardboard skeleton. I instantly regretted it as I waited quietly for the crying to start. The crying was the worst part. Actually, no, the worst part was knowing that I didn’t feel guilty for making Mum cry. I felt fucking envious that she was even able to. I hadn’t cried in years, not since that first delectable taste of antipsychotics jabbed carelessly into my bare ass cheek like the poky beard of a paedophile.
At that moment, I wanted to scream. I wanted to spit in their dirty fucking faces. I wanted to kick the living shit out of every white-coated bigot (doctor) who spoke to me as if I wasn’t even there. I wanted to stab every single paisley-scrubbed ex-mean girl (nurse) who treated me like an alien and not a person. I wanted to strangle the daylight out of the towering, uniformed pigs (security guards) who had held me down, injecting me with sleep-inducing poison, ignoring my pleas for autonomy and leaving me covered in bruises and scrapes while I fell, like Dorothy in the poppy field.
23/09/2018
Yellow is the warm silk of runny eggs, the shadow of freckles across your nose, carefully smattered by the evening sun. Yellow is a baby’s handprint, painted in the middle of the sidewalk, the echoing laughter of daisies in the wind. Yellow is the haloed light of your mother’s vinegared hands, singing brightly through your locks, freshly purchased lemon cordial, sweet saccharin against your tongue.
I thought I could be yellow when I upturned a tub of manic panic onto my brittle, bleached strands.
I thought I could be yellow when I paid $75 for a sunflower shirt at Dangerfield.
I thought I could be yellow by treading barefoot over burnt summer grass.
I thought I could be yellow by only eating mangos, sinking my teeth through skin and flesh, burning juice trickling down my chest like a hairy, meandering tarantula.
I thought I could be yellow by choking on the sickness of a pineapple IGET vape or the cock of the blonde-haired boy who smiled at me in the pub.
I thought I could be yellow by tying my favourite mustard jumper around my neck, tightly woven wool strands triumphantly tickling the broken blue sunset of my neck.
I thought I could be yellow…
19/11/2016
The year I tried turning yellow was a haunting blur of bitter ecstasy and bloody brick-walled chaos. It was late November, the school year had just ended, and the warm spring breeze was screaming a soft song of hope through the dusty gum leaves. But I wasn’t dancing shotgun in my friend’s beat-up silver Corolla, a capsule of brown crystals going soggy under my tongue. Nor was I nestled tightly between already hungover teenagers and screaming babies on a sweaty, Byron-bound, Jetstar flight. No schoolies for Alice; no school for Alice; no Alice.
Alice Alice Alice Alice Alice. I said the word over and over until it turned mushy against my unbrushed teeth. Who the fuck was Alice anyway?
*
15/03/2023
Alice
You still planning on heading down this weekend?
Kyle
Yeah, plan is to drive down Saturday night.
Gotta spend the day with the kids or Erin’ll get pissed with me.
Alice
Lol
Bring em
Got three empty rooms now.
Kyle
Ha
We’re staying for the funeral, but the kids have school Monday
And Erin’s working Thanks, though.
Alice
Yeah, fair
Kyle
I’ve taken Monday off so I can help you sort shit, and the week after for the funeral.
Can’t get any more time off, sorry. Hospital’s flat out with the fires.
Alice
Yeah, of course.
Kyle
Shoot me a message if you need anything in the meantime, though, yeah?
Alice
Yeah, will do.
14/02/2013
Yellow is the sun that melts my bones.
Yellow is the sand that squishes between toes. Yellow is the lemon growing on the tree.
Yellow is the shame you shoved inside of me.
Yellow is the daisy blowing in the wind. Yellow is the top of the garbage bin.
Yellow is the noodle swimming in broth. Yellow were the undies you ripped like cloth.
Yellow is the duck swimming in the pond. Yellow is the sound of morning song. Yellow is the bee, buzzing to and fro.
Yellow was your grip that wouldn’t let go.
Yellow is the piss in a public pool. Yellow is the bus taking me to school. Yellow is the butter melting in a pot.
Yellow was the innocence that I lost.
Yellow is the jelly dancing on a plate.
Yellow is the sponge soaking up waste. Yellow is the flame on the candle that I blow. Yellow was the voice that couldn’t say no.
10/10/2023
Dear Alice,
I am writing this small note to remind you of the following:
Please turn off the washing machine when you leave the house (even if the load is not done).
Please also feed the cat and make sure to lock the back door.
Yours sincerely, Alice.
P.S. It’s bin night tonight.