Projection city

buffering

We sit in a room with the light dimmed And I’m clutching a pillow shaped like a star Feels like we are floating up here On the 23rd floor When I make jokes you don’t laugh This makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I cry in this room and you don’t stop me. I read somewhere that what people like me need Is empathy [And that’s what you’re good at, right? That’s why I pay you, correct?] I find it hard to believe That you might like me Knowing me to the extent that you do. But this doesn’t concern me that much. Ours is a professional relationship. It would be unprofessional for you to leave. Outside the small room in which we sit There’s a locked, glass door. You have to buzz me in And I don’t have your phone number Or your email Or any other way to contact you Outside the parameters of this weekly hour In which I cry and in which you listen. Outside the room in which we sit there’s a poster With a hotline I should call if I need someone to talk to Out of office hours.
- Cocoon, 2014 

Brief abstract: Our character, Sam, gripped by maddening panic attacks, starts therapy in a faraway city, having severed all contact with her family. She's asked many, taxing questions as she navigates the possibilities of a self unshackled by toxic familial expectation. One being: is it possible for you to imagine there might be men out there who aren't punitive and judgmental like your father, or passive aggressive and quick to crumble, like your brother? And what would it take to be able to see them beyond that dichotomy? What was funny was that one of the many things she railed against was that nobody really saw her. Now she was discovering how skewed her own vision was. 

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