Have you ever looked into the eyes of a psychotic person? They look past you, eerily grinning on their own, guarding a mind that taunts everyone that it knows more than you do. The pace of a psychotic- very leisurely, body is stiff, as if something grips the spine, and arms hang, unmoving the sides; sometimes they appear to be floating. Outsiders are left watching in hopeless horror, their loved one wandering in a walking coma.
Symphonic numbers are being played on the piano upstairs- The Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, Greensleeves. Strings are strummed over the hollow guitar. No one talk to him. He is focused, in tune with the music. Music books are stacked in the corner. He read them all, learned the notes from the piano and applied them to the guitar. His fingers manipulated the strings into prodigious sound that I could hear as I sat outside, under a bare tree, studying the sway and romantic, poetic forms of the black trees against the deep cerulean evening sky. There was always a glow from the upstairs window, usually all night. Day and night, the mind of the house was always full of music- strings, beats and the delicate, childlike clinking and thunderous pounding of piano keys.
Four years ago, I wasn't sure if my brother was loosing his mind, or just gaining it. I didn't know what voice to listen to- the voice of Reason that told me it was drug related, or worse, he was schizophrenic, or the voice of spiritualism, telling me my brother is on a journey.
He spoke ambiguously, as if he were trying to fool us; he loved to play with words, such as heroine. We asked what drug he took and he said, "Every man needs a heroine." There were no traces of the drug in his system. He spoke like a stoned,double-speaking, drunk poet reading a rap song. He told me things like he felt people were worshiping him, that he was the second coming of God. He felt impelled to preach what was swirling in his head. Many times I raged, believing his ideas were not of God, they were delusional, conceited and warped by the many drugs he was dabbling in.But he was certain God was leading him on a journey, TV symbols, such as the H for History Channel, street signs dotted the path of the map God had laid out for him; these symbols were created just for him. He never slept. He would wander the streets trying to find people to preach to. He told me I read too much and not enough of the Bible, yet at one point he told me that I had written the Bible. And he said unholy, disgusting and sexist things to me that made me want to destroy what ever had possessed him.
I was still trying to finish a two-year degree at my local community college; I found myself staying there all day, just because I didn't want to be home. I drank a lot more, because I felt more on his level when I was drunk. I felt I could debate him and not be as scared. However, I slept behind locked a locked door. We hid knives and our dog became scared of him. The whole house felt like it had a ticking bomb hidden somewhere; the tingling energy made the walls cringe.
Even though he spoke of Biblical things, and wore a cross, I felt something sordid had taken over his brain- sniveling little demons were pulling nerves like puppet strings, rewiring it and making him grin all the time under glazed, dilated eyes.
"Demons dance circles in our head," I found this at one point in one of his writings. Even in his arrogance that I hated, i felt sympathy for him; he said he was frustrated because people don't understand what he says; I know that feeling all too well. He is very mechanical, as well as philosophical. It was as if he was discovering the mechanics of the Universe in a way, which I know can drive one to insanity. But is it a drug altered mind from which he is seeing the mechanics or a natural mind? I guess I hate that he thinks he has figured the Universe out, when I think I have! I am a woman and I guess I thought that we have a strong connection to the Earth and Moon, and can feel energies from the Universe since we are much like the orbs that suspend in it.
He lifted the curtain for the show- a terrifying show I didn’t want to see. It was if his whole life his eyelids had been closed and he had just now opened them, but instead of him seeing out, his eyes showed what was within.
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