At Ten They Dole Out Pills
At Ten They Dole out Pills
The patient, Walter, stands in unlaced boots,
his shirt a map of sleep.
Asks for a razor. He is refused.
Hygiene is encouraged between 8 and 9—
instead he will pound out Beethoven
on a round wood table
in the lounge.
His beard remains ragged
over the course of his stay.
Walter will leave in six weeks,
swearing he no longer wishes
to kill his cranky boss,
axe to head, cranky was all
he said about him. The boss
triggered Walter’s PTSD
causing him to live out tragedy
once again, the sight of his brother’s
slit throat by a stranger in a red suit.
Martha in the oversized
blue hospital gown that drowns
her jutting hip bones, opened
at the back revealing her heart
covered underwear
is also ahead of the clock.
She demands pancakes with syrup.
At 7:30 it will be eggs. Then she will forget
pancakes, be attracted to eggs again,
to anything that gives her something to do.
Martha will be released in two weeks.
Her insurance has run out plus she says
to the doctor she is no longer suicidal,
death no longer appearing to her
as the fist of her mother. He doesn’t believe
her but will release her anyway
to prevent her from being sent to the county
psych ward where the patients don’t bathe
and the food is bland, where there is no lounge,
no television, only one large room
with cafeteria style tables and no hall
in which to pace.
Pills are handed out, swallowed squares—
comfort to troubled minds
Gretel sees the crows fly. Her dark bangs
covering one eye, t-shirt advertising
Green Day, music of young punks.
She sees them hanging
from the ceiling.
No one else thinks to look up—
shit like that frightens them.
Gretel’s stay is two months. The doctor
will try to curb her hallucinations
with medicine. He knows it’s not easy
having schizophrenia. The crows will vanish
but the invisible people talking to her
will remain. They whisper sweet nothings;
You are beautiful. You are loved. There is
no reason to fear the day. Be mighty in your presence.
The voices could be worse. They could say mean
things. Vanished is the fuck yous along with the crows..
It is easy to forget the rest of the world
thrives on fried potatoes and five o’clock news
when the young woman I sit by
has slit her wrists to the bone
and the man on my left rocks
with his dead wife on his lap.
It will be a marvel to stand barefoot in dirt
after shuffling across concrete for weeks
in a place of imagined windows the mind provides.
The mind whispers blue light even in the dark.