Asylum

       
1.  No Recall      
     
I didn't see or feel or hear it coming.      
And then I came to after the      
Annihilation of all I thought I knew      
Once I tumbled down the rabbit hole.      
     
2.  Morning Glories      
     
The whispers of clean linen      
Float across narrow beds of    
     
Brutality, and reflections      
Of a summer's early morning,      
     
As melodic rapid chatter      
Of Tagalog plays through the halls    
     
While pairs of girls in their scrubs      
Disappear into recessed rooms,    
   
To the sound of greetings weaving      
Between a woman's cries of pain.      
     
     
3.  Under the Snow      
     
Triple digits of the season      
Pass week after week outside,      
Unnoticed by those doing time;      
This asylum with arctic air.      
     
Who are they kidding?      
I've been here long enough to know.      
I actually died that day,      
And this, this is my hell!      
     
Hell is not fire & brimstone.      
It's a parallel world from which      
No locks exist, yet no escape      
To return to where you came from.    
     
Patients, whose eyes you look into,      
And no one is there!      
It's where all fear goes at night,      
Their voices are heard through the walls.      
     
But those with their vacant stares      
That I can't penetrate have their truths      
Forever frozen in time    
In cages where they walk in place.    
     
The cold numbs hands & feet & thoughts,      
But I feel alive because of it.      
Like a mouse foraging under the      
Snow while an owl listens above.      
     
I know the pounce will come      
Through the snow at any moment,      
Bathing me with morning light      
As owl talons sever my breath.      
     
     
4.  Night Terrors by Day      
     
Sooner or later it would come.      
A wide-spread power outage hit      
Just before dusk with its heat,      
Just as dinner was being served.      
     
I had learned to live on scant fare,      
Being a diabetic      
And having only one kidney:      
My weight loss, lost in my blue gowns.      
     
I was restless and felt cold air      
As I walked with my cane to the hall,      
Aqua socks with tread on my feet,      
Toward the nurses' station.      
     
Thick orange extensions snaked      
Everywhere, and the "regulars"      
Emerged to sit in their wheelchairs      
To watch while I sat with ice water.      
     
But all the hustle & bustle      
Would agitate some patients,      
Making them unpredictable      
While staff was racing all about.      
     
There was an old man known for being      
Loud, and most disagreeable.      
He wanted out of his wheelchair,      
To go where he wanted, right?      
     
Nurses would stop to secure him      
As he protested and cursed.      
The regs who knew him rolled their eyes.      
I continued to sip my ice water.      
     
Then I noticed the white-haired lady      
I was chatting with was looking up      
And said softly, "He's behind you."      
I stiffened and hunched my shoulders.      
     
I tilted my head just enough      
To see the old man, his gnarly hands      
Gripping the backrest of my chair,      
Glaring down at me with eyes bulging.      
     
"Get out of my way!" came the frost.      
I bent lower against the chill.      
"I'm sorry, I'm not in my wheelchair."  
(Being stranded in a stiff wooden one)  
 
I felt the spray of his spittle      
On the back of my hand holding the cup.      
"I don't give a God damn," came the blast,      
"Get on the floor and crawl out of the way!"    
     
     
5.  No One Will Know      
     
Every evening, the asylum      
Gives up its creatures of the night:    
The stalkers who haunt the halls,    
Who try all the doors to get in, or out.    
   
And homeless creatures on two legs    
Who I would often walk in on,    
Using the toilet meant for me,    
And watch the TV while I slept.    
   
But no, in that place I could never sleep,     
I used to be nocturnal years ago.    
But all I could do now was listen    
To the jungle cries and siren calls.    
   
I'd stagger out to the empty lobby,    
Hearing a man far off in his room    
Calling out for someone to please,      
"Dear God, TAKE ME HOME!"      
   
The man in the next room in bed A    
Hollered out from the open door,    
"AH, SHUT THE FUCK UP!"    
And I screamed, "YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"    
   
Once I was back in bed, that same voice    
As all slept while I laid awake, plotting, said    
"Hey, give me some more Demerol.    
Don't worry... no one will know."                  
                 
                 
                 
For those who knew that I was gone (which was due to a terrible accident), here's some of what my time away was like - just a taste of it.            
             
Image: An original drawing: one of my oldest "mouseworks", by me.