MHI: EVICTION NOTICE by Fleur Bradley

Trigger Warning: This piece addresses mental health

The HWA is pleased to launch its Mental Health Initiative, a coordinated roll-out of events, resources, and activities intended to promote positive mental health, foster the concept of hope, and challenge the stigma of mental illness in the horror genre. The initiative, run by the organization’s Wellness Committee, launches in June, and includes the following blog posts from Of Horror and Hope, a downloadable anthology of poems, flash fiction, and personal reflections on mental health by HWA members.

EVICTION NOTICE
Fleur Bradley

THIS SERVES AS A NOTICE.

I see you there across the room, looking smug and stretching your legs. You have a whole posse with you, but they exist in shadows and speak in murmurs. Your voice is loudest inside her beautiful mind. You’re the leader of the pack.

You whisper, talk, sometimes scream in her ear. Telling her she’s

Stupid

Worthless

Ugly

Your friends chime in, but it’s you who takes the air out of the room.

And lately, you’ve started taking over. That’s when we got to talking (you doing most of it, me listening). Your words shatter the window to her kind soul, sending shards in my face. Sharp glass cutting through my girl’s skin from the inside out. And then you take a breath, sucking those same shards back, ripping her flesh.

Here we are again, you screaming, her trapped inside. The meds do little, which you’re gloating about.

Can’t shut me up.

I wait for you to crawl back to your corner. She’s afraid to move, because of all that broken glass, inside and out.

We bandage the cuts, knowing you’ll be back tomorrow. She sleeps now, while I sweep up the glass and tape the broken window.

You aren’t wanted here, with your baseball bat of hateful words, your knife of loathing. Get out.

I wish I could fight you, but it’s not my battle to win. But I watch her get stronger. Her new window will be made of plexiglass. Her heart a mother.
I see you there, across the room, with your posse. You’ve been served your eviction notice. She’ll win the next fight.

WITH THIS NOTICE, YOU ARE EVICTED FROM THE PREMISES.