Friends

Teddy bears and stuffed rabbit

were her companions as a child,

she loved them fully and unconditionally,

singing songs and having conversations,

paternal eyes absorbing a child's imagination

as the cute and clever inventions of innocence

using creativity to compensate being an only child.

They listened politely and placated her words with smiles

while she spoke of pixies and fairies visiting,

tolerating all her wild accounts of creatures

appearing under her bed.

Amusement turning to apprehension

as child's stories became bizarre teenage tales

about unearthly beings,

always predicting fate of others,

cringing when they came true.

What relationships she made quickly disappeared

after she confessed about the person's guarded secrets

from what her invisible partners whispered to her mind.

Learning in the pain of rejection to stay mute,

but voices in her head never would stop talking,

finally forced to cave within, heart unable to bear the agony

of all the truth she heard

nobody would accept as fact.

Life in padded room becoming her private heaven,

never alone, nor sad,

angel spirit finding peace in quiet,

even when wearing straight jacket and medicated,

eyes bedecked by special tranquil gaze of pure euphoria

when her unseen friends who loved without betrayal,

took her spirit for a flight to their realms,

paradise at last found in mental ward hell.