A Click Of the Door, Part 1

A Click of the Door

I enter the ward

with a click of the door.

After peeing in a cup

I wait in a small room—

a desk and two chairs.

They ask me to empty my pockets.

They take my pens.

I loose my ability to talk

and begin to cry.

My poetry begs for ink.

Later, my psychiatrist

will write a note; I will have pens.

This is my home for the next month,

my freedom gone. I will not

be allowed to walk in the daylight.

Meals will be on staff time.

He calls my name, his voice pleasant, soft—

nothing is pleasant about this.

I pause at the counter shaped like a horseshoe.

I know the routine. The psych tech

pulls at my stuff, searching for contraband,

looking for drugs and things I can harm myself with.

He thinks my face cream is in a glass jar.

Glass is not allowed on the unit.

I grab the jar from him and throw it.

It hits the wall like a stone.

“Plastic doesn’t shatter,” I tell him.

I know this hospital,

like I know my own

demons. I have been here

many times.

Several doors line the hall

all the same color of beige.

I lose track of which is mine

and walk into the room of a naked man.

He is completely shaved, his dick

the length of half a hotdog.

He screams. I exit.

Psych techs rush to calm him.

They suggest he get dressed.

He will, but not before he parades

in front of them. I watch from the hall

and think what a creep.