The month is February and that meansnothing because winter in Tampa isthe same as fall and spring so it could’vebeen easily Thoreau’s “September sun”or Eliot’s “April is” blah blah blah.My therapist is pushing mindfulness.“Relax your shoulders, face, and guide your softattention to your breath. Release control.”The voices that depressed people can hear,can they be silence speaking just as clear,articulate, and code-switching as Iwas when I was still healthy enough to work?Joaquin Phoenix puts his clown makeup on.A tear falls. Here, the quiet says nothingloudly. It sounds the same as a white person’snothing when they are eyeing me with Whatwill she do next? Does she even belonghere? Is she still here? Why won’t she just go?Joaquin Phoenix has got himself a gun.Joaquin Phoenix is losing his damn mind.I have a lot of options when it comesto $lms where characters are going mad.There’s Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now breakingthe hotel mirror, Charlize Theron nudein church in The Devil’s Advocate but Iwant Phoenix dancing down the Bronx step streetin full clown face, red suit, and mustard vest,to Gary Glitter’s “Rock ’n’ Roll (Part 2),”his every kick and steady lurch and landin dirty puddles splash because it makesme think of playing high school basketballand entering the gym to that same song.The crowd, the layup line, first shot alwaysa brick off the backboard despite my height.This is a fundamental memory.The signs pointing to doing something rightand failing. Educated and I lostmy job. Bipolar and I cannot losemy mind. The first responder says I’m safe.Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital.I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheetover the window, ghetto blackout shade.I live in the god fucking sunshine state.It’s the pandemic. Counties, soon, will banSula. A muscle memory is notin your muscles, it’s really in your brain.My horoscope says I’m a human liedetector, that I hear the truths that whisper.