Twenty‑nine

I remember that in our sitting room was a grotto and in the grotto was a statue of the Madonna.

I remember that she was bleeding and that the child she held in her arms was bleeding, too.

I spoke to her and you came in from the other room to ask me who I was talking to.

I didn’t listen to you and went on talking in a language you didn’t know.

You had a word with Father Pasqualino and he told you to try to record my voice.

You did, but when you played it back the tape was blank.

Then you talked to Dad and he hit you and then he cried, admitting that that morning he himself had seen a man walking unperturbed through the kitchen.

You went to see Father Pasqualino again and he came the following afternoon to bless the house.

As we walked him to the gate I started running and shouting that there were dozens of snakes coming after me.

Then you took me to a psychologist and he told you that I was suffering from depression and hallucinations.

I was five years old and didn’t know those words.

You told me that depression was deep sadness and hallucination was deep euphoria.

When you told Dad what the doctor said, he hit you again and then he broke all the windows in the house.

I remember that in the years that followed, you brought me to your friends’ houses and made me walk through all the rooms, asking me which were inhabited by spirits and which were not.

I pointed to the corners of the house and then I fled.

Until the age of eight I often saw a shadow dashing past me but I could never make out what it was.

I went back to the psychologist and he sent me to a psychiatrist who told me to make my madness bear fruit as a way of freeing it.

I drew, but I couldn’t color anything in without going over the edges.

I bought a guitar, but I was afraid that the strings would cut my fingers.

I wrote and something inside me moved.

I wrote, I wrote, I wrote lots and lots, and then I became famous.

And the thing I had freed came back and invaded me.

Killing me.