Teresa Yego – Truth Be Told
She made her final payment to the hospital yesterday, a silent transaction with a swipe on her phone. She quit her job last week, went grocery shopping on the way home from work, and stocked her refrigerator, which is now empty. She is finally getting ready to fulfill her heart’s desire. Unlike last time, it won’t be a clumsy attempt, there will be no unpaid hospital bills to worry about. What is about to transpire will be beautiful, serene and deep, just the way she wants to feel tonight.
12 a.m.
Shaking her head slowly from side to side, she looks into her bedroom mirror, which sits in a thick silver frame decorated with ornamentation. The full-size mirror in the hallway of her apartment was shattered into a thousand pieces about four months ago when she pounded her forehead, hands and knees against it on a morning filled with sorrow and despair. That attempt at self-destruction landed her in hospital for a fortnight. When she returned, the place had been cleaned up, she had no hallway mirror any longer, and then she stood here in her bedroom for awhile inspecting her bandages and wounds. A fine scar runs across her left cheek, a thicker one across her right knee, souvenirs from her latest flirt with death.
She is there, but is she really? The mirror tells her that the young woman is rather thin and frail-looking. Her eyes look hazy and sunken. It is just a phase, just a phase, one might say. No! Truth be told, she’s shutting down. Not at this very moment, but she felt it beginning a while ago. She has been doing that for the past three days, probably for a week, maybe even for a month. Time has become immeasurable, and shutting down has become her mentality. Her own thoughts need to cease, the sounds of people’s words have got to evaporate into thin air.
1 a.m.
She cannot pray for herself because she has become prey, having surrendered to darkness. She has been staying away from reality, blocking it out long enough so that she cannot see. Well, maybe she could, but she doesn’t want to. Truth be told, she might as well be blind.
2 a.m.
She feels a pull toward her phone, then offs it. Easy! She stares into empty space, thinking that she can see with the lights out, but is this vision? She sees herself hanging from the ceiling, tongue out, looking so funny she must laugh. Her body is on the floor, her wrist slit open, bleeding profusely. Next thing, she’s lying on the table, foam on her mouth. Truth be told, she is still here.
3 a.m.
Her phone is back on. The pull is there to reach out to the only person she still has feelings for. A message appears on the screen, there’s message labeled ‘Just now.’
‘You know you can call,’ it says. ‘I low-key miss you. Or you can come over.’
Low-key, huh? She remembers his laughter, how he whispers into her ear, ‘Come on over. Send me me some of the poems you write.’ Truth be told, she doesn’t know reality from illusion.
12 noon.
A white swan was floating slowly across the lake. Geostationary satellites were launched from a mountain site without much fanfare. The prime minister got split down the middle, and his left half was kept standing while his right half peeled off and crumbled to the floor. The night was blue before it turned red, yellow and purple. That is where it all should have ended, and that is how close she came.
She wakes up in a hospital, surrounded by family. Oh, for goodness sake, the pills wore off around 5, sending her into denial. She had opened her eyes as the light started crawling through her curtains. Then she discovered that she had been vomiting chocolate energy drinks and blood.
Her father, mother, brother and sister sit by the side of her bed, taking turns professing how much they love her and how happy they are that she’s alive. One of them will shed a few tears or clear their throat while another will say: “You know how much we love you,” mindlessly repeating that until her brother sighs deeply, leans over close to her face, and says: “Why do you keep doing this to us? Isn’t suicide outright selfish?”
Truth be told, this theatrical performance is just manipulation to dissuade her from unaliving herself. No, no, no! They will not let her fulfill her dream. They are the ones being selfish, checking in on her every morning at 10.
(c) 2025 by Teresa Yego. All rights reserved.
Teresa Yego is author of “The African Doll – Poems From the Heart,” available from Amazon.
