Cocktail Hour
August 12, 2025 | story by Vivienne Serret
illustration by Vivienne Serret
This story is from Atrium’s Spring 2025 magazine, which released April 2025.
there were mornings when i’d wake up
and the weight of my own skin
felt too
heavy.
when the air in my lungs
didn’t fill me —
it suffocated.
there were days when
my mind
scattered
like broken glass
on the floor.
no matter how good a job
i did sweeping it away,
shards would
hide
in the shadow, waiting
for me to step on them,
and bleed out.
i remember when i was five years old,
i’d cry at the thought of the color purple
and couldn’t use the bathroom
without inspecting the corners of the sink
at least three hundred and fifty-one times.
left,
right
left,
right
left,
right
left.
my mother insisted
there was nothing wrong with me.
but mommy,
if i didn’t fidget with the lightswitch
once
or three times,
three times,
three times,
or five times,
or seven times,
or nine times,
or eleven times,
or thirteen,
you could’ve died.
i showered
with scorching hot water
yet never felt clean.
i deluded myself into thinking
daddy long legs
and german roaches
crawled on my skin.
mom, it’s in my veins.
there’s
a
spider,
i know i felt them craw-
ling on me
i know i felt them craw-
ling on me
mommy, i can’t sleep
without barricading my door.
i swear i’d hear knocking on my
window.
i think there’s someone at the door
mama, wake up, he’s climbing up a ladder.
mama, wake up.
when i was 17
i read the yellow wallpaper.
i thought
how much i hated that
beige curtain in my living room
with those disgusting
purple accents.
mom took me to a doctor.
and yes, the doctor told me i was odd
like the numbers in my head that felt right.
but she said we could fix it with a walk.
and so i tried to walk,
but the watch reminded me
i’d gone two miles.
it can’t be two,
it must be three,
or five or seven.
i walked so much the sun
kissed the moon.
but my head felt more exhausted
than these fragile legs.
all i wanted
was to be told everyone was like this.
but odd i was.
and people like me couldn’t just walk,
or eat more fiber.
i needed milligrams and patience.
it’s still hard to admit
zoloft is the lifeline
when my heart gives out.
i’ll take this cocktail
if it means letting go
of the fear that once made me forget
how to live.
i’ll take a handful of abilify
if it means finally sleeping
and not being scared in my
own bed
and so it becomes:
one in the morning,
one in the evening,
one at night.
i’ll take it again
and again
and again.
being ill in the head
used to be the hardest pill to swallow.
but now
no one’s knocking on the door,
no daddy long legs crawl on my skin
the beige curtain
and its purple accents
is just a curtain.
