Theresa told me one night that some mornings she wakes up, stares up at the sky from her pillow, and starts to cry because the day is already too beautiful, already too good, and she has ruined it, simply by seeing it so.  I turned my head so she wouldn't see my eyes roll, come on, even while, with all my heart, I wanted to see the world her way, to feel the shape of every hour falling away.  Those days, instead of doing Illustration homework, I would sneak up to the sixth floor to be with her.  She fed me hot butter croissants spread with Brie and milky tea, we danced and held our bellies laughing, we were so generous to ourselves, secreting away our time.  

I thought she was a planet, touching down to meet me.  I thought she knew of better things.

And the things she spoke of, all of that melancholy, all of those roots and nuts and leaves fingered to lace, those things were real to me.  To be overwhelmed by a pungent rotting fruit pit, to drown in every shifting mood and melody, to stand awestruck and bleary-eyed on a Baltimore side street, gaping at the sky and the night clouds coming in, was a new lifeblood multiplying with a billion more red blood cells than I'd ever had before, thundering little life-savers shoving their way around the universe.  The more I knew her, the more the world exploded into ecstatic particles, and soon it seemed that every cell of me should meet every second of my life with the crashing of cymbals, the gasping of waves, more, more, more.  

  

  

It was too much.  For all of us.  Within a year, every member of our tribe fell to pieces.  Some of us ran into hospitals and watched the doctors watching, another flew home to West Virginia and burrowed in the undergrowth.  I slipped out of the city and spent the winter in a Massachusetts group home where they read O'Connor and Twain to us after dinner.  I slept so much that winter, slept inside of books, inside of woodboxes, inside of snow drifts and sunken gardens, then one morning woke up and taught myself how to fold fitted sheets.  

The mycologist found me in the basement doing laundry.  He always wanted to share his feelings with me, even though I had nightmares about his red face and naked body.  I think he liked my black eyes.  They reminded him of a dark haired girl he used to baby-sit, back when his skin was still fuming with alcohol.  He remembered everyone being so disappointed with him, buddies from high school, his brother who ran marathons, his mom and dad who continued sending him small things in the mail even before he could call for help.  But this little girl turned to him with glad eyes, she lifted her arms to him.

I didn't want the mycologist.  Didn't want his own red river of feelings.  He would cry when I asked, How are you, press his praying hands into his eyes, and thank me for asking.  He carried field guides and photo albums from room to room, aching for someone to notice and inquire.  In his helper room on the first floor, he drank tinctures and sweat alone over the humidifier, desperate for a cure.  He wanted to cure me, but I didn't let him.  

Instead I ran outside to the icy clearing and slid on my back to stare at the sky, silent and black.  Everything important was light years away, burning away, unfeeling.  Take me, I would ask, take me.  But nothing moved, and the quiet settled over me like a comfort.  

I want to be alone these days.