Raeesa Usmani

One Self, Varied Portrait

1

a portrait of mine, created over time in the eyes of my lover is of a vulnerable, timid, bold and gentle kind.

my colleagues created my portrait with envious and petty eyes for them of a mean, self-centered, manipulative and loud witch.

the portrait created by my best mates touched me the most, it was me, the brave, reliable, open, intense and resilient survivor.

and my family sees me like a rebel, loud and misfit in the traditional set up, I grew in.

2

they say portraits can make the viewer feel one can admire the stale beauty or mull over the intriguing smirk the sarcastic smile can startle you or the gloom of the face touch you you can feel happy to see the greenery but the layered message may petrify you you may be reminded of some close lose or it could be a feeling of an innermost self that was looking for a vocal escape to get out of you, to fly high in the wide-open sky!

Juan Miguel Verdecia

Juan Miguel Verdecia

Hector Silva Esquivel

Hector Silva Esquivel

Wency Rosales

Raydel Castellanos

April Bulmer

Nurse Ivan

St. Michael and All Angels It is 1950. I nurse at a psychiatric hospital by a river. Today it is green and flows quickly. A red canoe dips and rises like a manic depressive. I glance from a patient’s window as I administer her meds. The woman is schizophrenic. She invites me to greet Archangel Michael, seated at the foot of her bed. She says he visits often. He is concerned about her health. I tell her he is an hallucination. She says she is blessed. He is a member of the heavenly host, charged by the Lord to defeat the Enemy.

The psychiatrist on call, Dr. O’Brien, is Irish. He is known for his tweed blazers and lilting brogue. The patient says he will understand her: he hails from the land of wee folk. They were once gods, tall as any man, she says. Jesus diminished their size.

Dr. O’Brien tells me the patient will remain in hospital for another month, at least. She takes the news badly. Her mother arrives. She is a stout woman with a gimpy leg. She balances her weight on a cane. She brushes the patient’s long red hair. She offers her a box of sweets. She draws the blue curtain.

When I return with more meds, I hear her say, “I will send for the vicar.” I wonder if he will speak only of the weather or the rise of the river. Will he invite my patient to pray?

Annabelle

Alarming A week before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she hid her alarm clock in the dead of night. She was deep in dream, she said, and could not recall where she placed it when she rose the next day. I helped her search for the cheap battery-run thing that had disturbed her each morning since my father passed. He, too, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. But it quieted his thunderous episodes: great storms that caused my young spirit to cling to the carcass of my canopy bed. So, in truth I did not mind his dementia, for he whispered my name with a soft respect I had never heard.

My mother and I could not find her simple timepiece, despite a thorough hunt. I guessed she disposed of it in a trash bag. I imagined the garbage truck drove it to the dump. Perhaps the alarm clock is still ringing in the great heap of forgotten memories there: functioning still, calling her to wake up.