I was born last Thursday
fourteen billion years from tomorrow
inside a sneeze of quantum mayonnaise.
The receptionist asked for identification.
I handed her a black hole
and three memories of a mother
who had never existed.
NAME: Approximately.
AGE: Eleven seconds, give or take eternity.
SEX: Ask the mitochondria.
EMERGENCY CONTACT: The heat death of the universe.
The psychiatrist wore a necktie
made of unfulfilled probabilities.
"Do you hear voices?"
"Only the ones that haven't happened yet."
"Do you experience delusions?"
"I believe I'm sitting in your office."
He underlined severe.
"Any family history of mental illness?"
"My father was a mathematical accident.
My mother was a rounding error.
My grandfather invented Tuesdays."
He prescribed two milligrams of certainty
and a pamphlet titled
SO YOU THINK YOU EXIST.
The ceiling began reciting
the diagnostic manual backward.
A rubber duck declared itself God.
The doctor diagnosed
generalized existential disorder
with acute ontological complications.
"Will I get better?" I asked.
"That depends," he said,
"on whether you've ever been sick."
The receptionist demanded my copayment.
I gave her the entire observable universe.
She said it wasn't enough.
I asked for a second opinion.
The second opinion
was a stapler
wearing my childhood.
Somewhere,
a kettle whistled
in a kitchen that never existed.
I remembered drinking tea there.
For eleven beautiful seconds,
I missed being home.
Then the doctor asked
whether I had thoughts
of disappearing.
"Doctor," I said,
"I haven't figured out
how to appear."
He scheduled my next appointment
for yesterday.
I was already late.