Back ensconced in ward 8 Bentley Hospital in my flytrap mind
At least I’m with my crazy people
Suicidal ideation with cold claws of depression around my throat
Empathy and cigarettes as I meet the gentle mental
Telling tales of trauma as we lurch toward medication time buoyed by companionship
Memories of their voices
‘She was born a heroin baby’
‘I took an overdose of Valium and a shitload of antidepressants’
‘I tried to kill myself twice’
‘I wish I was dead’
‘I tried to hang myself with a sheet and the nurse found me’
People rendered fragile by the viscous blender of earth
Some think us hopelessly broken
We balance madness and sanity in our brains sometimes madness wins
Medication time, medication time
Drugs are shuffled by doctors and dolled out to wild-eyed victims of the societal meat-grinder
Titration of pills and prescriptions to quell anxiety, depression and delusion
Uppers, downers, round and rounders
Anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and heavenly benzodiazepenes
Then we sit outside in the courtyard to smoke to punctuate our day
Sharing cigarettes with noble depressives or exploring thought projection with shamanic schizophrenics
We dance a devilish dance in a rain of paranoia
Until it all becomes too much
We are sad, we are sometimes shattered
Sometimes hard to love
But we laugh and we smile too
Then howl out the agony of our souls
We will keep trying
To get our heads together