Year of the Cross
December into January, the nails pierced the nerves on the left side of my face as I slept. After the emergency room, I blacked out for 10 days and was resurrected with a prescription for muscle relaxers, an order for a brain MRI with and without contrast, and one suspected ankylosing spondylitis diagnosis – that explained why my teeth kept breaking, why my jaw became arthritic overnight. What remained of winter was a blur of grief, denial, and a deeply ingrained search for purpose inside of pain. Did I wish hard enough for my neighbor? My sister? Both knees with hands clasped, incense smoke infiltrated my lungs. Newly dyed dark blue hair with oversized t-shirts and sweatpants became my version of modesty.
March and April consisted of preparing for rebirth/afterbirth. Every youngest son and every eldest, only daughter. I knew he would never really marry me but the jokes between us, paired with 150mg of bupropion and too many ounces of coffee, helped me to ignore the sorrow. I imagine(d) 13 eggs left, probably 6 (were) are viable, but the mental torment is genetic. I wouldn’t, in good conscience, pass it on. I tried taking the two 100mg tablets of bupropion again, but the insomnia further fatigued me. If my OCD ritual consisted of 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 knocks was I inevitably mocking the trinity?
In May, I reluctantly stabbed the tip of the first biologic injection into my ghostly pale right thigh. A week later I was in the ER, staring at the crucifix on the wall, an overwhelmed Catholic hospital turned into an “inner city” trauma center. Blood, urine, and nasal secretions were collected. My weakened immune system was fighting a war with some mutated, too close to antibiotic resistant version of Staph, for my comfort. The fever came and went as I explained the stories of Sarah and Abraham to a man who wasn’t forced to center his whole life around a vengeful father. Hagar’s place within the narrative will always be complicated. I began to feel sympathy for her. In and out of fever dreams I questioned “who determined her path?”
Early June, 6 months before my 34th birthday, turned into 6 weeks of antibiotics. I didn’t mind the bitter taste of Bactrim, but the bottle of Macrobid had a weird smell. A rainy Monday morning, my mom skipped a step and the only shoulder I had to lean on was broken. On the advice of an Instagram astrologer, I calculated that my tarot cards for the year were The Hermit and The Moon, a watered-down version of The Tower. Between grocery orders and graduate school, I didn’t have time to be entirely cognizant of all that was crumbling before me. My hair faded to seafoam, so I covered it with a bottle of dye resembling red wine. I needed control. My hands swelled and ached for the next 6 days.
During the peak humidity of summer, my chest tightened. I tried to ignore it but anxiety will never really leave my side, an entity that can’t be exorcised. In a past life I had learned the importance of troponin levels, and I couldn’t calculate those at home. The same ER but a new intern, whose curly hair reminded me of a more recent “Grey’s Anatomy” character. The resemblance provided some weird level of comfort, although I would have preferred Cristina Yang. Eventually, the lab results returned and reiterated that I would live another day. I was tempted to tell the young doctor how much was ahead of him, as the combination of Ativan and Toradol hit me like a ton of bricks. For the first time in a long time, I slept peacefully, Meredith’s monologues in the background.
Two weeks later my solid black cat, Salem, remained curled in bed with a fever of unknown origin. It was the morning of my second CBT session. I wondered if my body, full of chaos, had made him sick too – my great grandmother’s superstitions lingered in the back of my head, and I couldn’t stop tapping as I waited for the phone call. I don’t remember what I ordered at IHOP, my mom across from me and now free of her sling, probably some kind of omelet. A few hours later the fever broke, and he was discharged. The vet prescribed a dropper of antibiotics and prednisone cut in half, a pharmaceutical communion. I never found the half he spit across the room.
As the weeks shifted into August, a staircase tried to kill me. Mid menstrual migraine, I forced myself to drag a vacuum and basket of laundry down the uneven wooden steps of a 1922 bungalow. I’ve always struggled with my sense of value beyond productivity and deeply ingrained gender roles. God was exceptionally clean and organized, or so I’m told. The front desk receptionist of the ER I had become so familiar with wore gold nail polish and a look of concern, “did you fall or were you pushed?” I found a green mouse cat toy in my pocket, Salem’s favorite, and twirled it between my fingers like a rosary. The NP didn’t feel the need for a head CT and I felt the need to take an extra Klonopin before bed. The burgundy and purple bruises both spread and healed over the next few weeks. Dizziness associated with mild concussion symptoms came and went, it was eerily similar to being on a rocking ark.
I don’t remember September beyond packing and another broken molar extraction. October became a blur of duffle bags, Airbnbs with stiff beds, and 3 stressed cats next to me in the backseat. I took in a calico kitten from the neighborhood colony and named her Opal; a stone associated with harmony in Vedic astrology. But I couldn’t save her feral mother before the bungalow sold, I asked for St. Gertrude to keep her safe. I made it down the attic steps one last time and didn’t look back, Lot’s wife taught me better than that. The Sunday before Halloween, I swore I could smell the frankincense trailing out of the Catholic church across the street from my temporary home and briefly, I considered going to confession.
November felt vaguely like purgatory, the nonstop waiting for something bigger than myself. The day after the election, I was too tired to flip tables because of false worship. Instead, I dissociated through meditation with my Hindu therapist and spent an hour with an allergist/immunologist. More blood, urine, and nasal secretions were scheduled to be collected. I was finally getting answers, with the help of Medicaid, bittersweet irony. Later that week the exhaustion took hold, and I spent Saturday in bed, paying for someone else’s sins, likely in the form of unwashed hands. As the temperature dropped and the sun started to set at 4:30, I functioned like a one-woman skeleton crew. Coffee, laundry, sleep, and school. The day after Thanksgiving, Salem tested positive for Giardia, Opal was likely the source. All pets in the home were prophylactically treated for pestilence.
December 1st and 343 days since the pain appeared. Another Airbnb in Central Illinois, cycling through the same band t-shirts and black turtleneck as the moving process was finalized. One of the men carrying boxes of books asked me what I liked to read, and I was too nervous to admit it was full of vampire novels and numerology. The first sleep in our new home, a cold basement apartment with a brick fireplace but no kitchen, the cats and I curled together on my $300 Amazon mattress. And we stayed like that for weeks. Due to anxiety of the nails, I wore my nightguard religiously. A stack of post-colonial literature books and a dwindling bottle of Vitamin D acted as bedside décor. My hair slowly transitioned back to blue, an ode to Earth and her luteal phase. In the snowy stillness, my 34th birthday came and went without incident. The same King Von psalm in my headphones as I combed through boxes of old journals, crystals, and incense; my gold evil eye anklet snapped and fell to the floor. Even so, I knew I had been protected. What’s done is done and I’m still here.
Britni Newton’s words can be found in Anti-Heroin Chic, Funicular Magazine, Ghost Girls Zine, and others. Currently in graduate school and working on a thesis in poetry, her creative writing routine leaves something to be desired, but her work is typically forthcoming elsewhere. She takes inspiration from both the pain and pleasure of everyday life, familial folklore, and occasionally the antics of her three spoiled cats. She’s based in the Midwest.
Amethyst Review 