Regina Brown Hears Voices, Kills Son Week Before Christmas, December 18, 1996

Sylvester, my eight-year-old son, lives in sin.
I tell his grandmother—his father's mother, mind you—
and she asks me what I'm talking about,

like she can't hear me. She says,
'Regina, he's eight years old.
What are you talking about?'

When I told her I'd take care of it,
she, once again, asked,
'Regina, what are you talking about?'

*

I watch Jay Leno on the Tonight Show,
but I keep the sound on mute: the voices
speak through him. It's getting worse though:

every time he moves his lips,
I can now read what he's saying,
what they're saying through him.

And I know they're trying to use Sylvester;
they're going to make him do terrible things,
my baby. I wish they'd take me

and leave him alone. I watch him play
with his Hot Wheels and Nintendo;
I watch him ride his bike;

I watch him play with the older boys,
who got over his lisp because he's so tough;
I watch him sleep in his bunk bed,

the one I bought so his friends could sleep over.
I watch him and wait as he changes before my eyes.
I watch and wait for a way to stop the change.

*

I'm watching Ted Koppel talk about a war in Lebanon.
He switches to taped coverage of soldiers defending their land,
their women and their children against an enemy

who appears unclear to me. Soldiers shooting guns,
civilians scream and run for cover,
cars burn along the side of the road.

He switches back to his report from the studio,
when, in the middle of his report, he starts
speaking this other language, at first his voice

just sounds slowed down like a record
at the wrong speed, but then he looks right at me,
right at me and says, clearly, 'Regina...'

*

I'm at work the next day
at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
early, 7am. I couldn't sleep:

I looked in on Sylvester all night,
Who just slept away
as if nothing were wrong.

I've been doing this job for years,
copying microfilm for the government,
but this day is different. I'm looking

through the eye of the stat camera,
and there's no image; there's no color—
just a white expanse of the world

washed away under an avalanche
of nothingness. And, goddamn it,
voices silence me at home;

I'll be damned if I'm going to let them
blind me at work. I don't know how
long I can keep dragging myself in here.

*

Days ahead, I just wish I could talk
to someone and see—in their eyes, I mean—
see them hear me. I woke up yesterday

and put my face in my hands, speaking
right into my palms, I asked
'Where have my friends gone?'

And I could hear the echo
of my voice bounce back
and forth between the lifelines of each hand.

*

When I look at Sylvester, I don't want him to live
like me. I don't want my baby
to know what it's like to feel betrayed

by your own mind. Once you lose confidence
in yourself, who can you trust? Not your own mind,
not your own ears and eyes, not your own hand—

this is when you play tug of war with the future,
yours and the ones you love. Soon, an anniversary
or a birthday or even this Christmas comes up,

you try to dig your heels in, you really try to pull
the future along, but then, just when you think
you feel like you're feeling strong, when you think

your life, your family and friends, all at once,
all pull together and the future begins to fall
over to your side, suddenly,

the rope   snaps in two.