Poetry

My Friendly Neighbourhood Psychiatrist

Philippa Martyr

I sit in the wingback chair and we pretend to converse.

You ask, like a husband, how my week was.

I say, Not bad. Only I felt a bit strange on Sunday.

Your eye runs to the clock above the door.

Tell me about it.

So I tell you how I went home and hid under a blanket

And waited for something bad to happen to me.

 

—Did anything bad happen to you?

—No, I don’t think it did.

—And how does that make you feel?

—Cheated.

 

I never went back to you after that.