23 June 2012
My name is Ivory. I am 18 years old. I am tall and lanky and awkward.
I am not a schizophrenic.
Nor am I bipolar, or have multiple-personality disorder. These are the assumptions of people in a place where drinking on a Tuesday night constituted a piece in the local newspaper.
I hear whispers of whispers in my ear. The voices of dead people, lining up for their chance to confide in someone alive. Their lips pressed to the swirl of my ear until I draw them and bring them back to life.
And so because I walk about with my head down and the dead echoing in my head, they cast me out. Because sometimes I mumble under my breath, or react to things they can't see. For that atrocity they bray for my blood, clamouring to see me burnt at the stakes of Salem.
After all, crazy is contagious.
Ivory • Opuss № I