My daughter's birthday is near Easter. Her NICU stay ended around my birthday, which is Prince's birthday. My husband, Halloween. My son, Valentine's Day. Christmas, when my in-laws split (temporarily). Memorial Day, when mine did the same (permanently).

Days created for other reasons. Days for other days. Days of secret celebration. Days for private funerals in the darkness of the hillside.

Today, I've decided, is a special day, a celebration of clarity. Of bliss. A day to sit with everything.

A day that is a gift from God, not to me, but to the Reaper.

I watch their exchange, smiling.

I came into this world two days late, mad as hell. My parents were nine years too far into their marriage. My mom was two years from an overdose attempt and my father, five years from a decade-long disappearance.

My grandfather-- who would later assume my dad's role-- had the quirk of nicknaming all the babies born into the family. Sometimes it took a while, as he needed time to reflect on looks, personality, and memorable moments. Then he would christen them with whatever he found fitting. But mine came in an instant. As I screeched in my mother's arms, wailing in protest, nostalgic for the void, her father pulled me into his age-spotted arms and I settled, growing silent in his embrace.

I like to think that my soul recognized his, that there was some part of me that carried an innate knowing of the traits we shared. But that's a story for another chapter. If you're the skeptical type, then it's a tall tale for another time. My Papa looked at me, and I looked at him, face still flushed with the remnants of my tantrum. On that Tuesday afternoon in the late Southern spring, my nickname chose itself.

Screaming Redcheeks.

Papa was the only one who called me this, and usually shortened it to Redcheeks, rarely calling me by my given name. There was even a paint stick with SCREAMING REDCHEEKS scrawled onto it with a fat-tipped Sharpie, kept atop the china cabinet for the days in which I lived up to my namesake. My tantrums became expected, routine even. I was set off by nearly everything, even trivial matters like the dog not listening or an especially tricky level of a computer game. I was (still am) argumentative and questioned the validity and authority of everyone and everything.

With my history, I find it strange that others describe me as calm or stoic. I was noted as being a polite, intelligent, and motivated child, though that sentiment decreased dramatically in my teens. Anytime I'm complimented on my nature, a montage of screaming fits, unfeeling language, and brazen manipulation flashes through my mind. I think of the year I smashed all the Christmas ornaments during a tantrum, or the time I threw a dining room chair at my mother. I see my children's worried faces and my patterns repeated within them. Then plays a vision of my marriage on the rocks, with my husband wavering on the cliffside, peering into the depths of Irreconcilable Differences.

My temperament breathes in dualities. There's a consistent ebb and flow, tempestuous currents of mood and mentality. There is understanding betrothed to denial. Warm embraces are frozen in a duel with cold calculation. Within hope lives hopelessness. In the absence of mania, comes depression.

I am Screaming Redcheeks. I am Marissa Wolfe.

Somewhere, within the gray of black-white polarities, there have been touches of silver that slow the pendulum just enough to offer glimpses of what healthy, happy, and hopeful looks like. Just enough to strive for. Just enough to snap the paint stick and depart from the path of rage. Anger is birthed from sadness. Sadness is birthed from pain. Pain roots itself, unyielding, into the grooves of the brain and chokes out the chambers of the heart.

And yet, it has been my greatest teacher. My greatest motivator.

The flame-soaked phoenix wails to the heavens, wondering why she's been forsaken, but within her scattered ashes is the chance to start anew. She reforms, entrenched in her cycles, and cries a different song, more knowing than the one before.

There's a familiar back and forth,

at the same age, same situation

A reflection casting backward

into the frost encrusted months

of nineteen-sixty-three

Somber eyes that watch chipped polish

trace the texture of a belt,

test its strength

From the past, she stares, for

she knows the story--

she wrote it herself, once

(and once is all you need, if you're good at crafting tales)

--and though she whispers that

some stories should not be told,

these Plathlike machinations

are owl's talons that crush

the whimpering heart

"Did you know that someone wrote "Fuck you all" on that brick up there?"

The nurse followed my finger up to a shockingly high point on the brick pillar to our right, scanned the waxy scrawling, and let out a heavy sigh.

"Yeah, there's some crazy stuff up there." She pointed her pen toward the bulky brick pillars scattered through the common room. You'll see a lot of it around here. Some people even write their actual names and phone numbers."

"I did see a good joke over there." I pointed to the pillar on our left and read the words out loud. "What's the difference between a dirty bus stop and a lobster with breast implants? One's a crusty bus station and the other's a busty crustacean."

The nurse and I shared a gentle laugh and reflected on creative, damaged minds, as if we were strangers making small talk. This was just another day at the office for her. I shared a similar sentiment. She opened up a red folder and slid it across the plastic table.

"This is a copy of everything that you've signed so far and just some general information about how we do things here. There are some personal items that you weren't allowed to keep, which you'll sign off on later. We have your valuables locked in a safe in the administrative office and if you need access to your personal items, you'll have to ask one of the nurses. You're not allowed to have your phone, but you are free to write down a few numbers out of it We did have to take your bra, because of the underwire, but you can have someone bring you clothes or anything else you need starting tomorrow. "

The nurse pointed to a highlighted four digit number on one of the sheets inside the folder.

"This is your code, okay? So anyone who wants to call you here and check on you has to have this code. This is the number for the nurse's station. The phones are shut off during group and mealtimes because we want to encourage you to go. They're turned off around 9:30 at night and are turned back on at 7:30 in the morning. "

She turned her attention to the smartwatch on her wrist and then peered over my shoulder at the plexiglass encased office in the middle of the open room.

"Looks like it's time shift change. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Do you guys have snacks or something? I haven't eaten since about 10." It was 7:30 at night. Now that I'd calmed down, my appetite had returned.

"We might actually have a plate leftover from dinner. Let me check with one of the girls and see if we've got something for you. Go ahead and have a seat over here." She gestured to a a grouping of tables and chairs nestled in front of a large flat-screen TV encased in a heavy-duty plastic shell.

I struggled to pull a chair from underneath the table. The nurse said all the chairs were weighted, so that they couldn't be thrown. The first of many reminders as to where I would be for the next four days. She said goodbye, and that I would probably see her again in a couple soon. She walked away, sneakers squeaking across the grungy tile and I shifted uncomfortably in the weighted chair, exhausted and vulnerable, my armor cracking further with each passing minute.

hunched

in the corner of a room,

in shack just north

of the highest mountain

on a lush hill, that hill

the one square within

the eye of god

gnashing

wiping crumbs from whiskers

alternates, gulps wines, continues

the bodies bake in the heat

the pungencies draw near

the lord's leering gaze

weeping

the woman in black

hair pinned to her crown

sweeps coins from eyes

mumbles words unknown

receding

the eater chases wealth

into the darkened valley

diminished by His watch

It was not quite an ouroboros.

Two birds, linked at the tails, pouring into one another, an ebb and a flow, a yin and yang, the holy messengers of the shifting tides of infinitude. They knew, they forgot, they smiled, and wept. But yet, it was all the same. What has been, will be, pacing footprints destined to become fixtures of the sand.

I slip the ring onto my finger--perfect fit-- and drape the chain around my neck. The earrings catch the lamplight, and the bracelet sings quietly against my wrist.

I lose myself in zirconia and colored glass, fellow fixture of the sand. I will be, I have been, I am, forever linked into the shifting tide.

I'd been there two days, already,

there were two more to come,

and made pictures for the other moms

Flowers in crayon and marker,

for each small face beyond the courtyard

They'd smile, nod, sharing themselves through sunken eyes

But that was the afternoon.

In the morning,

I spiraled.

Looking out of a frosted window,

wondering what the phoenix knows of death, if she remembers rebirth

Envious of the sun, how it warms the leaves.

I turned a blurry eye

to the workbook the doctors said would help-- not more than the meds, but enough, sure--

Halting whirlpools, the best I could

I thought sisters who wore their broken crowns in withered weeds

the eager maiden, the defeated mother, the bitter crone,

and smashed felt-tip letters into tiny boxes

I breathe,

reset,

and realize.

It was them, those two

that slid knives through peppers

instead of thumping veins

and slid potatoes into the oven instead of my tear-streaked face

Two lives, entangled into mine,

Miraculous eyes that study me, as I study theirs, reflections of what came before and what lies ahead

Linked through unconditional cords, formed into inquisitive structures

If I am the reason for them, they are the reason for me

How tight are the cloths bound along my hands?

Are they even tied at all?

I stand on the shore, salty water pooling beneath my feet. The sand gives way. I feel the coolness of a blade on my heel. I panic. Flail.

Fall.

Weeping maiden, trapped.

Am I?

The air only smells of the sea.

Are my captors lying in wait?

Or have they left me to my misery, knowing I would keep myself?

You were born of particle and dust, carefully sewn with trails of light, and filled with worlds unseen.

But then, you were pushed into the abyss, swallowed by the viscous black. It filled the spaces where there should be air and enveloped you, suffocating you with flesh and all its unruly demands. Pieces of you, vulnerable, contorted sinew push through your holy threads and leave you hapless. Hopeless.

You've felt this.

Haven't you?

It's in the way you wail for love, for fame. The way you glutton, though all discernable needs are met. Like an insect met with the shock of fate, you pour into the flashing light, for it has promised you so much. You fall, willingly so, into your own siren song of self-preservation. You jump from wheel to wheel, picking asphalt from your wounds. You peer into the depth of glass and plastic, hoping to catch remnants of your birth, that familiar glimmer within the darkness of dimensions. But the spark isn't there. It never is.

You despise this.

Don't you?

There is a piece of yourself, petulant and whining, just as you did when forced onto this Earth. Its cries keep you up at night as you stare yards into the black, merging with the déjà-rêvé. You mask the natural light, afraid of its illumination. And so, your Petulant Self is "disciplined", neglected, ignored, abused. It's forced into the background, unsure of how to reach you, for petulance is its only defense against the voracious black. It will wail until its needs are met. A thread tugs at your heart and you slice it, annoyed. You are too tired for the truth.

You're denying this.

Aren't you?

The smiles formed with brick and string are not the same as the ones that appear in those quiet moments when you recall your composition of dust and light. As you float along cyclicality, you discover how to move with grace through the uncanny valley, how to walk within the plotted chaos of the moon. The nature of your intelligence usurps the desire for control and the ancient truths of the past push you into the future. The guiding light of your Self relived will tell you stories of dust and stars. If you listen, you release.

But you knew this.

Didn't you?

My skin splits,

oozes, bubbles

and falls, sticking

to your polished tile

I hear you weeping

and smile-- now,

do you see the depth

of your insolence?

My crackling bones

wail into the heat;

Your irreverence

has burned us all