I'm the asylum's linoleum floors and all the holed rags the patients have wasted themselves on, trying to clean the breached moon craters that let the diseases in. the sickness running feral like a pack of dogs engorged with howls and snarls and whimpers nobody could translate. "we are gardens at winter, dusted, always dusted, with ice and fog and the death of doves." they disclosed to the padded walls stained with the bar-graphs of claw marks and sobs.
they scurried, pounding their soles into my cheeks and sockets, as the doctors came with their needles and table restraints, "we don't need help! we need silence and this freedom!" they were gutted, temples filled with grotesque platinum comets, teeth gritting and clenching and grinding.
I watched through suicide cameras in bedrooms with the windows barred and the furniture nailed in to keep it from throwing fits and emergency room violence. they slapped the crook of their elbows at night and received Indian burns just to keep the hurt at bay. they knew this wasn't death or life or any form of existence but the basement of survival.
in their dreams I spoke, "your odor bent toward me, a clear mass of wine and weeping. bones wasted, you felt like cough drops and lint and things too small to be seen. I loved you without accidents or lying life lines and maybe that's why I see you when I look in the mirror."
Author notes
option 2: hopsital setting. sorry I couldn't write you something fresh.
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I feel like I'm going crazy and that my head is going to cave in. my sanity is a bird losing all its feathers.
A contest entry
- Monday Morning by new born.
700 points, ended February 26, 23 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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This is some amazing prose. You used terrifyingly sharp images and the wording was so fearful and...just an amazing poem.
"...I loved you without accidents or lying life lines and maybe that's why I see you when I look in the mirror."
Really powerful. Great job and good luck.
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Your descriptions brought up another fream I had, though I won't go into details about this one it freaks even me out just thinking about it.
This almost read like a story lined entry put aside for anyone to see and no one to notice.
And why are you going loopy sweetie whats up?
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I love the way you've written this. It feels so real and the emotions are so piercings. Reading this brought up images from the time I had to stay in a psychiatric hospital.
You're such a brilliant & talented writer.
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yeah I kind of based it on my own stay at one when I was 13. what a a clusterfuck!
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gah, it was just awful
I pretty much felt traumatized from that place
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