Young Writers Society

Sanity in a Bottle

BY: Paradox (Vivian)

My mother took pills every day.

They were tiny powder capsules of sanity

In a small orange or white prescription bottle.

I hated them,

Every last one of them.

She had twelve for the mind,

And twelve for the body,

A straight overdose her doctor said was perfectly safe.

Half the time she never took them,

And she was my mother,

But the other half the time she was not.

Twelve little multi-colored pills for breakfast,

And twelve more for dinner

Depending on the day.

Some days were good,

They were slow.

Some days were fast,

She’d take more,

That was bad.

One night,

I awoke to screaming,

Her screaming.

And it was just like so many other nights.

Dad called 911 and an ambulance came,

She’d had a miscarriage,

Again.

She never would get that big family.

A week later when she came back home,

She took a pill,

Just one.

It was a new one,

Small and pink,

And she downed it with wine.

It was just me and her that night,

And all night she cried.

Not being able to stand it anymore I marched up to her room,

Went straight for the bathroom,

And took out every pill bottle for mental health from the cabinet.

Then I took the physical,

An afterthought really.

Opening them all,

I flushed the contents one by one.

Down goes depression,

Drowning anxiety,

Her suffering second personality.

At last when it was done,

Every empty bottle on the tiled floor,

I laughed.

All the old, awful bottles were gone.

But I had left one.

The new one,

The birth control.

Ten years later I held my sanity in a bottle

Just like her,

But for different reasons.

At least I know where to find it.