There’s an assembly in the making
and the suits are all shuffling in for the big event
making way to their front row seats
****** in nose  
hanky in hand  
and all colorfully draped  
in those cuffed pin stripes
and Jerry Garcia ties

now what would the Grateful Dead
or any of their fine entourage
have to say about this foul routine?

Apropos of that
they’re talking in the 3rd person
with tight syllables
and wavy hands
and all taking a run
at the state of the union
there’s Valentino
and Freddie
and good old Sal
"look....their fiddling with their nuts!"
cries a layman from the balcony seats
the Yin and the Yang
have got even the most liberal minded
scratching their heads
as questions fly in from the field:

don’t you know the way it used to be?
have you no morals?
which way to the exit!?

These front row fanatics
have surely been scrimmaging
in the corn fields
all down in that classic 3 point
watching their weight
with sample selections from the
Spicy House and Yaas Bazaar
as members of the congregation look on with envy

pass the aperitif...the big ***** lady is on deck!

Union heads are running rogue
loading up on grievances
and lines
passing files at a make shift pew
jumping the bunkers
and stepping on clams
while the orderlies move in  
for governance

It’s a bewildered state  
and only for the mind of the rigorous
Jimmy D would say:
“it’s nothing you *****...to the victor goes the spoils!
everyone has a bit of good you know...
you just have to find it!"

Unrest is growing in the ranks
and the masses are unstable
Time to hammer down
with a formidable brace
and two tick play

February 12, 2016

I lie **** on top of my blankets; praying. Praying. Praying. I am fighting waves of nausea and sleepiness. Medicines I feel sprinting through my veins dragging me downward. No.
The rain slow at first but gathering wrath in the warm night.
Lightning and thunder will come I smell it afar off. Ions heavily scented spill through the atmosphere holes in my plexiglassed window.  
Thunder rolls through my chest shaking deeply my whitewashed plaster cocoon. The cries begin to swell, and echo strangely through the sterile corridors. I am not the only light sleeper, I muse.
I doze momentarily even among the screams of the mentally hilarious; I am called into sleep. They must have doubled the sleeping medication; the storm will be worse than I thought.
I start at a sound. Steady. A theta wave vibrating through my room. I pitch to my side in time to see a lightning bolt slash through the sky. I saw something. The bolt plays hell with my night-vision as I sit upright on my bed.
There. Struggling up the plastic surface of the viewport. It cannot fly in the rain; it struggles for purchase on the portal. I study her. Elegant and slender she reaches the airhole and pulls herself through. Far off the screams wax and wane as the storm intensifies.
Her slender thorax and polished, obsidian, exoskeleton strike excitement through me to a cell. A perfect engine of pain and terror. A great black wasp. She reminds me of a thorn as she rests on the windowsill; unmoving in the air conditioning. Giddily, I shake with excitement nearly overwhelmed. Delicately she cleans water droplets from her abdomen and shakes the moisture from the thin membrane of her wings. I slowly move to my shelf and remove the specimen cup from its placement; silently unscrewing the threaded lid from the clear plastic container. Down the hallway a tired groan and a throaty grunt from one of the other patients. The wind now screams through the breezeport that runs to north toward the cafeteria. A shingle is peeled from the roof of a gazebo and cyclones into a bulkhead. I lick my lips, and consciously check my excitement.
I slide a sheet of crisp white paper from my desk. Quickly, I trap the great insect with the jar and slide the paper over the aperture trapping her between jar and paper. She does not struggle, but looks intelligently at the walls of her new prison. Beautiful, and intricate machinery at work; she readjusts her  wings, observing me with with bulbous eyes. Lightning strikes, and there is a deafening pop as a transformer explodes. For a moment it creates an azure sun outside, and casts curious shadows through my room. In the corridor the lamp light is squelched, and then ignites emergency lamps in scarlet hues as the diesel generator sputters to life and idles. A deafening clackson alarm begins to wail.
I am not aware of this at first; obsessing over my catch. Her form is ******, deadly. Something deep within me stirs at the very site of her. Revulsion? Ecstasy? From my reverie I am stirred by the clanging of doors and staccato laughter in the crimson glow of the storm lights. In a moment I am resolved and I slide the paper from the opening and cover it with my hand. Now footsteps. She senses me and reels in instinct. Without hesitation she draws herself tight as a bow string, poised to ****** the hypodermic stinger into the warm pink flesh of my palm. Quicker than thought she strikes piercing, seemingly to the bone she injects poison. Down the ward doors are slid open and the sound of radio chatter plays toward me. I am engrossed, in bliss as my arm begins to numb. Five times then Nine times she spears me with the barb. My heart beating so hard in my chest that I am sure the orderlies must hear it. Then I hear a burst of static and a sing-song reply of phonetic alphabet followed by my room number. I grasp her delicately from the specimen cup with my thumb and forefinger as she stings me with prejudice beneath the nail bed and cuticles. I cast her through the air hole in my window and quickly lie upon my bed before the door is unlocked. A man in white scrubs and a five o'clock shadow opens my door and pierces me with two steel blue eyes. "You should be asleep." "Get some rest, we will have the lights back on in no time." I smile my head swimming with post adrenal bliss. When suddenly I hear the droning of wings. A sea of raging hornets sounding ominously in the small cell. A black cloud pours through the airhole, countless chittering wings encompass the orderly in a poisonous storm cloud. With vengeance they sting, his eyeballs his hands, his throat. All swelling with purple nebulas of poison. In his mouth they crawl and down his throat. Efficiently suffocating him in mere moments. Then they quiet. All at once they flock to me, walking on my pale naked flesh caressing me with millions of antennae. They do not sting, instead they are still. Their crescent shaped bodies vibrating,  like a cat purr against my cold skin. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing hilariously, and I shudder hardly containing the joy. Then I pick up the radio clipped to the orderlies pants, and pull the 18 inch telescoping  steel baton from the holster belted at his waist. I click the PTT and speak into the radio. Epsilon Wing Cell 005 Accounted for, Over Quintar beep followed by a burst of static and a reply. I cover my mouth to suppress another fit of hysterical laugh. I step barefoot over his body and onto the cold tile of the ward; spinning the heavy keyring on my finger

I want to fix everything all the time
Maybe that's why I'm greying early.
Anxiety only feels good when I commit crimes
Ironically, because it's always there in me.
I think when I'm thirty I'll be bald
Alopecia will hit me by the time I'm twenty five
Can't breathe with palpitations, or so they're called
With these heart murmurs, I'm amazed I'm still alive.
Nostalgia makes me laugh and cry simultaneously
I know I take myself far too seriously
I'm tired of holding and losing things near and dear to me
Like acid drops and alcohol my blood's relatively
A relevancy and tell me, do I look infected to you?
I hide behind pastimes and impulsive rap lines
But nothing in the world could be farther from the truth
With smashed cats on road sides and fast forgotten rhymes, I
Wake up to Jim beam smiling over me
Cover leaves and evergreens childishly wind chime
I two-time everyone I meet to some subtle degree
And I've told my mom to die one too many times
But it's cool because without these angst phases
I'd have no words to express the connectable times
Which are the worst times, remember what I say
LSD and new Mexico make me want to fly away

Do I have a clue what I'm doing when I'm drinking at six thirty in the morning?

Today, around noon, I met true doom
On the train tracks of my Oklahoma culdesac
There was a dog split in four separate pieces
And though it was full of countless diseases
I thought Jesus, no one needs to see that
Considering the fabulous place we live at
So we picked up his leg and his two ******* torsos
And his head was twelve feet away from the track, more so
Rotten his teeth crushed, his spirit forgotten
Sought for life out of the fences he was brought in
Though we looked, no collar was around
So we put the poor ******* three feet underground
Brian cline built a cross (he was tossed)
And lost and crossed the best friend he fought
And I forgot for a minute the duties I hate
Because for once I did something that needed no reinstatement
Mourning wood does no good and frankly neither do I
Because when mom drinks she drives, and it puts suicide in my mind
But I got other options left to use
My throbbing ******* is sore, my bush blue and abused
Tattoo bleeding through, misconstrued my good graces
All these racists are faceless, playing miss Ohio's nameless
At full blast, backward, like present turned to past
If it were that simple, God knows maybe I'd last.

Do I have a clue what I'm doing
When I'm drinking at six thirty in the morning?

Bible belt majority, getting snotty and disorderly
Conformity torturing me, the owls hooting quarterly
In minutes, it's finished, let'***** it and stick it
This sickness is missing a home and I can't ****
Coffee in my *** is uncomfortable, but a necessity, like a
Suppository, strapped down the old man, the orderlies
Are ornery. I'm ***** but I'm tired of ***
Wishing I could love someone I've never really met
I can't rest at night with these relentless dreams
Waking me up with cold sweats and hoarse screams
My mind is reamed by the thought of Lucy in the mail
All the while hoping my friends keep themselves out of jail
I know this isn't hell, but I still feel like I'll fail
Chasing my own tail out of the fear that this isn't real
And don't tell me these restless moments are just deja vu
I know I saw all this coming when I was dazed in my youth
Swollen lymph nodes in my neck and in my back
Blowin smoke right back, who will be the first to act?
I'm tactless and laughless, and hapless, this mattress
Had lasted, in fact it's madness, this last kiss?
I've wracked it and cracked it with no decryption key
With all this frustration flying around, no one can hit me
But you scream all the way up the staircase
And I hope to the devil I never forget your face.

here we are
sitting side by side,
like it was meant to be from the start.

little did we know about each other
but that did not matter
and what a great chance of luck
that we both got stuck
in the same hospital
sitting side by side,
together, through it all.

2 years before me
were you able to see
the monsters that sprouted
in our mind, never doubted.

the disorder of
perfect order,
is what you have.
and hurt yourself
by slashing your wrists
and because of the bullies
that always used their fists.

on our hospital trip,
we met the others.
doctors and nurses gave us all tips,
on ways to not **** ourselves.

he met daniel and nate
in the boys ward.
while i slept in the other gate.
adeline, or addy,
has quite another story.

her combined-adhd
gets the best of her, just like me.
her problems are the
same colours as my own.

she doesn't eat
until she can feel ripples
in her stomach, and see her feet.

the voices of her
tormentours
damaged her soul,
leaving a hole.

a hole exactly where
the bullies would tear
and rip and shred
her own self, until she was dead.

daniel, blonde, eyes so blue.
he was so young,
only age two,
when he was taken away.
the string of his life
were beginning to fray.

he told us of how he dialed
3 numbers on the phone,
and thats how he became a foster child.

from home to house to home
the more he regret
picking up that phone
"you know you did the right thing"
says doctor camille.
"your parents were destroying
your childhood."
doctor camille was right.
that didnt mean
he didnt slip further into depression
each night.

moving and moving and moving.
he never found a place
that didnt feel like he was losing.

every family sent him back,
because he would have attacks,
until finally one family
called the doctor and said,
"hes scared, can't you see?"

schizophrenia,
thats its name.
daniel says its
like a tornado of mania.

he's scared, afraid, terrified.
"what if the voices tell me
to not stop till i have died?"

how can you eat
when all you feel
is fear and beat?

"how am i suppose
to eat when i only
think about when i am so lonely?"

"daniel, its not you.
its your disease that makes
you thinner and blue."

nate -nathaniel- from b gate.
age 12, height five foot, eight.
light brown hair,
running his hands on
his head with care.

nate has been here before,
its not his first time.
he began by saying
he was sexually abused by a "manwhore".

in his old home
back in los angeles,
where his uncle used to roam.
and eventually moving in to stay.
that marked when
nate would be afraid to come out and play.

the self hatred hit you hard
those memories that you wear
have been charred.

when you cry,
you always want to die.
when you hurt,
you leave blood on your shirt.
but when you love,
everything else rises above.

but affection-
you could not feel,
wherever you were headed,
is where the sad kids go to deal.
you weren't into everything,
but your choices made sure you had a good time.
believing all your life
that if paid to love you, no one would spare a dime.

i remember telling us all
about your great hope
of climbing onto a ledge, expecting a fall.
but that moment before you jump,
you said you heard your hurt
go, 'thump, thump, thump.'

and that made you cry.
you explaining to everyone here,
that you still want to die.
but inside you, you hold a deeper fear.

lastly,
lux & lucy,
their story is quite ghastly.
so hold onto your loved ones.
unlike these twins,
you must have tons.

lux sees herself
opposite of her name.
she would exclaim
to us all in group.

black, studs, piercings, hate,
everything she is
and all she wants for herself is to sedate.

"why is that" asks dr. camille.
"because the monsters
in my head cant be revealed."

we all wondered
what monsters she had
all of us sitting here are thundered
by our own devil's minions,
so why did she say no
from her opinion?

for the first few days,
neither lux or lucy
said what made them gaze
off into each
of their own reality.

not until lux was shaken awake,
by one of the orderlies,
which was a big mistake.

she was catatonic,
her eyes i'll never forget,
how they looked so demonic.

later when we had group,
she finally spoke
and as she spoke, her head began to droop.

psychotic depression erupted
through her when she and her sister
were physically corrupted
by their father.

hard punches,
stinging slaps,
lethal kicks,
fatal grips.

lux already had
the disorder
of being bipolar
coursing in her DNA
and her father sought to control her.

'"i can't have a daughter so * up like you."
many times, against the wall
is where he threw
my sister and i.'

after nights like these,
lucy would lock herself in her room
and cry till daylight.

but nights like these,
where she would try to hide,
a banging on her door would make her freeze.

when their father
discovered poor little lucy,
he would beat her for hiding.

the more the twins were hit,
the more lucy was deciding
how much she would force up.

this was her secret,
that only she would keep,
to always force up the food that settled deep.

but after one certain meal,
lucy went to her room,
skipping the bathroom,
and broke the seal
on a new bottle.
this was the deal
she made with herself,
"if everything turned to ***,
take one bottle off the shelf
and let these pills be how you will commit."

'in the hospital i awoke,
which was followed by
meeting all of these folks.'

so this is the true tale
of how we met
of course it lacks a few details,
but to know those secrets
i guess your insanity would have to tip the scales
so you can join us all here,
where we all met.
where we thought we might die,
each of us appeared.
we did not meet
to save each other,
we met before our moments of death
to accompany one another.

They're children
They're just children!
He yelled at the camera
And they're forced into this
Living Hell with no way out!

He tried his best to raise
Whatever awareness could be aroused
It was wrong
These children
They were writhing
In their own
**** and ****
Curled up in little *****
Without an inch of clothing on them

When he came in
The orderlies avoided him
And his camera
They couldn't be held responsible
For the atrocities that were taking place
In the buildings where they secured the little income they had

The nurses shot ***** looks
There were few of them
Only about one was assigned to a room
Which housed around fifty children apiece
When he asked them
Can you spare a moment?
For the camera and the lives of these poor kids?*
They're eyebrows pointed down in a sharp line
And they quickly rushed away

He couldn't believe it
Children
Not older than ten years
Running about
Bare naked
Covered in the foulest of substances
Emanating smells you couldn't imagine
Yelling incoherently
And
Just as the orderlies and nurses did
Running in the opposite direction of the camera
And the reporter
That would expose the place they called "home"
For the snake pit it was

Let's get this revolution
All my new world orderlies
Because we are the solution
To the bigger stick diplomacies
The shadow of plutocracies
Casted by the sons
Of the Titan kings inciting
The immortal chosen ones
To Prometheus igniting
From the mythic rebel guns
Of Zapata to Guevara
Bolivar in Venezuela
They provided the umbrella
To the reign of encomienda
Reconquista gunna meet ya'
In the jungle with the rumble
Of a Sandanista struggle
From the hovels of Aleppo
Diggin' rubble with a shovel
Wagin' Warsaw in the ghettoes
On the concentration Campos
Lazarettos, and the diamonds
That you smuggle to the kingdoms
Of the Leos in the Congo
But Lumumba, they remove ya'
Like guerillas in the mist if ya'
Resist em' in the system
Arab springin' into action
'Cuz the shah is a mirage
And the Contra-banded faction
Is another name for Raj
To convert the sacred hajj
Into cheaper camouflage
With didactic hypocratic
Neo-liberal art collage
To reeducate the masses
With a capital dogmatic
Lower-casing democratic
Are the over-ruling classes
Where the socialist fanatic
Anarchistic automatic
Never passes, spewin' gases
Of an open-****** fascist
But the tilting of this axis
Is the cashing-in assassin
Malcolm X'n MLK and then
Allende, Joao, and Mossadegh
The CIA, pieces in play
Objective's always Pinochet
When fair elections
Have their way
The pawns go first
The cheaters say
Game over Mr. JFK
And they don't shed
A tear for Ted
Without a bullet
To the head
Of another red dead scare
To hide the truth behind the D.A.R.E.
Grin and bare the propagand
Now it's Comey's Hoover Dam
And Putin's Agent Orange  
Is the latest Khmer stooge
On the trail of ** Chi Minh
Painting refugees in rouge
Making killing fields of stock exchange
His presidential recompense
No cents expense for Climate Change
To silence sense and dissidents
Within the firing range
Of this ****** hate crusade
Scorching Mother Earth campaign
So we gotta disengage the main
Brain drainin' inhumane
Tyrants always back again
To seal the gates and lock the cage
Vote us off the winners' stage
By droppin' bombs of martyrdoms
Crazy Horse was not insane
Brown said **** this ball and chain
With Henry Wallace all the wage
Ragin' fifty shades of Shay's
To free the press and then reclaim
Our history's white-washed front page

Confusion has taken up residence within my mind of late,
An uncertainty, certainly,
Like a crossroads with no signpost,
I'm unsure of where to go,
Where I'm going,
...once, going twice and gone to the gentleman in the tan suit flanked by white-clad orderlies,
Gone with the wind,
My life is a mosaic of mistakes,
Beautiful for some to behold, but broken none the less,
My heart hasn't skipped a beat but I've skipped my last few appointments,
I'm addicted to shortcuts leading nowhere fast,
Getting ahead at lagging behind,
I'm... Afraid.

Too much empty space and yet no room to think,
I'm howling but you wouldn't hear a sound if you cared enough to listen,
Nor see a ripple upon the surface of the lake you used to swim in,
You see what you have to see,
What I have to show you,
You see a constantly constructed façade of smiles, of laughter,
Of everything that constitutes being "okay"
You don't see the jagged edges,
My hands are torn and ****** from holding it in place,
Still, scratched palms are nothing to keep you in the dark,
Or rather, out of it,
I suffer this alone, I endure this alone,
I stand alone
...and I fall alone,
And as I meet the ground, I fragment,
To once again piece myself together,
I wonder when the cracks will show...

The last times I wore a french braid:

17, laying on my stomach in the psychiatric intensive care unit, (adolescent)
I reach for my hair, and let them grow tired,
tirelessly overlapping the strands until the entire mass is taken care of.
I stay on my stomach,
I try not to move too much or the orderlies will think I'm at it again.
A few days later, in the unit common room, my new roomate has me sit in front of her.
She runs fingers through, twists and playfully tugs she says if we hadn't met here she'd be in love.
I agree.
Still braided by her delicate hands my hair flicks as we giggle together into the early hours of my 18th birthday,
sipping at ***** dipped pepsi she had her sister sneak in.
The nurses chant "this isn't a sleepover! Get back to your beds!"
But we are kids,
So we feast on the cookies and crackers I'd been shoving down my pants at mealtimes then she waits patiently as I purge them.
We make blood sister bonds in our skin with razorblades and she braids my hair one last time before they move me to the adult ward. Because I was no longer a kid.
So the next day I cut it off.
I cut it off the next year too.
And half way through the next I cut it again,
keeping my hair just out of braiding reach,
Just out of length of fingers running through,
twisting and playfully tugging,
I like it a mess, so they won't fall in love with me anymore.
Braidless, I can stay distant, unattached like the feeble, overdyed locks matting on my head, but I can feel it growing every second

20, I lay on my stomach, hospital bedsheets unruffled in starch allegiance,
Reach behind my head and see if it's long enough, and I braid.

Kindness rules Toronto,
they've institutionalized it here.
They've printed it on signs.
Socialism always breeds that slight smell of sweat spent
by the orderlies as the patients finally took over the asylum.
Victory tastes good
but the taste left over is
somehow seasoned with regret.
Full moons symbolize something similar for everyone,
something longed for,
the reach and stretch of inevitable death,
The regret of infinite moments
that might have been
if only,
the shame of an identity worn once and discarded,
The crying of the lambs
echos inside a collective mind.

First came electric therapy, designed by men to **** her memory. The currents coursed through her veins. They tried to burn her true love from her brain. Synapses flared and flamed singeing away nearly everything she dared to feel almost nothing was left but a name, an impression. Session after session sparks cut through her skull and tore through her mind.

All she had to do to escape was to lie, and say she no longer felt that way. However, in her slurred and slow mental state all that she could do was whisper her lovers name. Iris sweet Iris the flower of her love, whose touch sent shivers swimming through her body. Iris the unforgettable, desirable, and unregrettable; even in the hours of her darkest pain she would never wish to forget that wonderful name. A name attached to such pleasurable memories. Iris whose lips tasted like strawberries and mouth would moan musically with her satisfaction. Touching each other under the starlit sky, bare breast against bare breast, licking each other from back to thigh until their passions exploded and they came together in exhaustion. No matter how much their love cost them, the jobs it lost them, the family they had to leave behind, it was all worth it. The love they had was special. Men would glance and stare; Sick with desire and envy, but they didn’t care.  
The Doctors tried to destroy their love but failed, because buried deep within the burnt flesh, on some deep genetic level the feelings still remained. Night after night she quietly sobbed Iris’s name. Her vision and memories were faded and degraded by the shocks administered. Sometimes after the doctors left and she was by herself, she would search her mind trying to find her own name. Corner to corner each crevice and crack, each hidden corridor in her mind was faded, and the only name she could find was Iris’s. Other evenings when no one was watching the orderlies would sneak into her room to tease and taunt her. They would scar her body with their fevered kisses, violating her womanhood with their vile flesh protruding and extending into her. Her eyes would close. Her body would tense, and her mind would vacate her skull, while holding on to only one thing, Iris.

When the merciless administering of electrical current to her brain failed to achieve any notable degree of success, the butcher came. They called him Doctor Slade, A specialist. They brought her to his table in a white room that was sterile and scentless. Her body was strapped to a cold metal table and she was sedated. Slade sliced through the skin on her skull, cracked the bone and opened her up, exposing her mind to the all those in attendance. Then when he was finished, he walked away a proud master mutilator. The nurse, whose white uniform was now splattered and sprayed with blood and bits of brain matter, hauled her back to her room.  

In her room she sat dripping drool from her swollen lips. Her vacant eyes stared out at the blank wall registering nothing at all. The bandages on her skull concealed small patches of blonde hair matted with clots of blood. Her drawers reeked of ***** matter because she had soiled herself. Nothing remained except a shell.

Somewhere far away Iris screamed the forgotten name. In her dreams she cradled her lover’s fragile frame, but never saw or touched her lovers face. Iris scribed their love in journal after journal, sketching out in deep determined details their five years together. She wrote of each high and low from the first time they met in the College courtyard till they day they were separated permanently.

Years passed. Iris’s body weakened from despair and began to waste away. Her flesh sagged from her bones bunching into wrinkles with brown speckles and spots parading all over her skin. Memories got lost in the fog of her mind until one day she could no longer recall her lover’s name. Shortly thereafter Iris faded away as well. Her body remained unsoiled by shame, for their love had been a thing of poetry, epic, and beyond belief, a guard against the unjustified onslaught of social madness, a sweet relief no matter how brief.

Every Sunday without fail,
my father would set about getting us on the
family visiting trail.
A picnic was packed, along with our macs,
(Just in case of the rain) and into the car
we were packed.
A beautiful drive through winding roads,
over a bridge that made your tummy lurch,
onwards, to the Pen-y-Fal psychiatric hospital.

The Tudor Gothic style hospital loomed large to a
child in a car. Like a silent waiting beast from afar.
A Charming gathering of gables and chimneys,
disguised the interior of quite simply "the madhouse".
Set in grounds of 75 acres, patients played bowls, cricket,
and croquet. I thought the people and the grounds magical.
There was this secret place with adult children,
smiling, and talking to the trees, knowing of fairies,
I never heard their pleas.

As I grew older, I grew bolder, the same Sunday jaunt,
to our familial haunt, but now I was an explorer.
I was allowed in. In to the centre of the Gothic beast.
Green tiled, with brown heavy doors, antiseptic smell
that clung to every pore and cell of you. Stark walls,
scrubbed nurses, white coated Doctors and thuggish orderlies.
And after your eyes took in those sights, your nose that smell,
the noise crashed into you. Moans, cries, wails and pleas.
The sound of a thousand lost minds.

My aunt was one of the lost.
She never went home again.
She never visited her children.
She never visited her eleven siblings.
She stayed, stayed with her friend Pearl.
Who once told me I had Vivienne Leigh eyes.
She stayed with the randy Italian, the piano player,
the Downs people given to that 'hospital', that smell, that Hell.
She was in the belly of the beast.*

The Grade II Listed Building has been converted into luxury accommodation now, but would you sleep there?

Like a young schoolgirl she flirts with the orderlies,
skid resistant yellow stockings swinging beneath
her wheelchair. Yellow defines the wackiest of the bunch.

She scooches across the room,
strapped in like a child in a car seat,
her socks providing excellent traction
on the shiny grey linoleum.

To see her this way is a bit shocking,
she speaks in a child’s voice,
like a little girl at play,

its such a strange sensation,
it reminds me of the time in the seventh grade
when Mr. Coster told us about the ghosts
in Sunnybrook’s basement,
I find myself questioning reality,
looking for ways not to believe.

At first she wants to pray,
and while our heads are bowed
she talks directly to Jesus, “there you are!”
she says, “and what a pretty blue sash you have on!”,
I steal a peak at the door
to see if Christ is there.

Next she wants to sing, and away she goes
while the girls join in….

The doctors say she’ll never again be who she was,
the mini strokes have done away with her.
I quietly concur and tell myself its not so bad
to see her this happy.

But within a week they move her to long term care
and all hell breaks loose.

“I want to divorce your father!”, she snaps,
“I’m tired of his ****”.
But when he comes to visit she purrs like a kitten
about undying love and how she’ll only be happy
when she dies in his arms.

The reality of her dysfunction
has never been more evident.

My whole life is a byproduct of her chaos.

Her eyes begin to take on
the wild look of a crazed dog,
She slips me notes and whispers strange things,
like she’s being watched and needs to be careful
about speaking too loudly,

I desperately try to make sense
of what it is she’s saying
but I’m completely distracted by
the lady across the table
with the television remote control
in her mouth, clamping down firmly
as if it’s a candy bar.

Mother goes on and on about
a job offer she’s received,
an offer to teach a sewing class,
she’ll need some good quality shoes
if she’s to be on her feet all day,
and maybe a few new blouses,
and oh how she’s tired of pajamas.
Next she’s on to requests for crayons
and batteries, a new mattress, more light..

She mumbles now.
Stream of consciousness ****.
She’s crying more as well.
Heaving sobs rack her body
as she bounces up and down,
hands across her face in an
over-dramatic display of despair.

Its my last evening with her.
I’ll be leaving shortly.
She’s not in her chair by the window.
I find her in her room lying in the dark.
I sit on the edge of the bed and touch her forehead.

She opens her eyes but does not see me.
She is still and silent and I notice she is clutching
the blue plastic Jesus I gave her, two inches tall
with arms outstretched and the message “HOPE”
scripted on the base.

I begin to stroke her hair, long, gentle strokes
and she sighs, A long broken sigh like
one might give after a good cry.
I half expect her to put
her thumb in her mouth.

Instead she lies silent holding her Jesus
while I wonder if the blue is the same blue as
the sash of the robe he wore the week before
when she was happy.

It’s a heavy moment for me because I know
that I am giving her what she could never give,
that nurturing touch that says its gonna be ok,
the reassurance that though afraid, you don’t have
to be alone, and the full and complete knowledge
that you are loved.

I wish she would say that she wished
she would have been a better mother,
a loving mother, but she cannot because
she is on a rocket ship to outer space
and I know this,
and its ok.

Though she was incapable of
loving me as a small boy
she became able in later years
to light a spark in me for Jesus.

A spark that would grow into
a burning flame of comfort in troubling times,  
a flame that would do more for me
than any mother's touch,
at least that’s what I’d like to think.

A flame that would ultimately
teach me how to love
in spite of never being loved.

A flame that is empowering me
to stroke her hair and give comfort to
a mother who never loved me
the way I needed to be loved,

the way Jesus loves me,
with his arms wide open and his light blue sash,
standing over the letters H O P E…

I get up to go
and see that she is now sleeping.
I watch Jesus slip from her fingers
and fall to the floor,
watch him bounce a time or two then
disappear beneath the bed,
like when you drop a coin from your dresser,
and it ends up out of reach.

I leave her room wondering
if I’ll ever see her again.

I step out into the night and go home.

The sound of a voice shouting out a distinct color,
Comes over the intercom.
Orderlies rushing all about in frenzy.
A screen that should look like an 8.9 earthquake happening,
Now only shows a razors edge thin line.
Compression thrusts must now begin
Once started you cannot stop.
Paddles please now to the chest, crackling static zaps,
Body thrashing about like a fish out of its safety zone
Log the minute, pull the drapes and tag the toe.
It’s a private encore just for me now
******* on her wrist and then on her neck
Still not any kind of clue, one last chance,
I reach again into my bag of effects and grab
Like having a last trick up my sleeve.
A Mirror in my clutch is unseen from her eyes
Placed now upon her lips as I look for something like a morning dew
Nothing so sweet can be found.
Her eighty sixth was the last time for candles that could be blown out.
Wrapping her now I try to keep her warm
Then slowly I help place her in her eternal slumber bed to rest
Now I’m given a key, O’ boy here we go
I know what time it is. I find comfort telling myself I’m just winding up a clock
I blow a breath and a last kiss; my eyes were the last to see.
If know body ever remembers, I will never forget!                            
                                                                                                                                                                            

(CARSr. 4-24 -12)

I'm trapped in a straitjacket
The Asylum's cleaning up off of this racket
I'm losing it, I keep writing on the wall
And then when I come back from the cafeteria I know for **** sure that they're gone
I've been in here so long the padded cell is deflating
It's degrading to have to suffer from the orderlies berating

They say the mind bends and twists like light caught in a prism I'm struggling to find the light trapped within what's written
I'm writing all day abusing pages constantly but I put on the facade of walking confidently

Who’re your heroes?

My heroes are those people that, despite the pain inside their head, will roll on out of bed every

Single

Day,

Get up, put their makeup on, pull on their jeans, stare at themselves in the mirror and say
‘Today, you. are. okay’
Not superman, or Spider-Man, Captain Marvel or Thor, but those people who marvel every day, that they haven’t killed themselves. That every day they don’t wake up in a cell with padded wall and no heating, eating frozen spoon fed dinners next to orderlies and sinners.

See,

My heroes aren’t those people, who can fly a thousand miles an hour or lift a car above their head,
But those people that fight every. single. day.

Who’s mind will tread that fine line between sorrow, and despair, who pray to the heavens that just for once, please, make the battle fair.
That when their  life is said and done, they’ll smile and see their conquest won.

These people are my heroes not for showmanship, fame, plumb or adieu, but for the silent battles won,

A thing that I could never do.

Here I am, Guilty I'm found
Lexington, Oklahoma then prison bound
I am ready to do my time
Crazy thoughts fill up my mind
Wardens and orderlies walk the halls
Prisoners sit staring at four walls
Lights go out; hear no sound
Anytime now, I'm prison bound
Another place people get on your nerves
Another day; A prisoner serves
A DOC #, no longer a name
They don't care who you are, just the order you came
I'll serve my time day per day; cause of my charges, it works that way
Sitting in county awaiting hell - DOC hold, there is no bail
Commit the crime, they will hunt you down
You too my friend could be Prison bound
1825 days, 5 years to serve for my wrongful ways
I get no CAP, no good days served
But I do get what they feel I deserved
Time, that I do have and I have found
That time doesn't matter.... when your Prison bound

Assimilation

Three thousand two hundred and forty tiles,
Three hundred and twelve hours, thirteen days,
Ten thousand steps walked, five miles,
Eight by eight, padded room, orderlies patrol hallways,

Thoughts patterned over, over and over,
Wits dull, under pharmaceutical pills,
Feigning defined sanity in isolated den,
Seeing different then ‘aids’ with weak wills,

Not fitting the social norm,
Emotions and thoughts invalid,
Indoctrinating those who won’t conform,
Not codependent on a screen or new salad,

Sitting cross legged, muscles sore,
Straight coat hugging me,
Arms, torso, numb, like the day before,
Staring up, the barred light is all I see,

Rocking to engage my core,
Listening to helps, words, drone,
Dying to see water upon a shore,
Here for safety yet never so alone,

Sloppy with medicinal chemicals,
Padded walls permanently stained,
Where people tried to bash their skulls,
From boredom and too much sleep attained,

Isolated torture is a maddening pain,
Socially rejected now a product of an insecure hell,
Painting their lines, difficult to abstain,
Each day, reliving how I fell,

Walking the halls, ‘I’, can’t come out,
Coming out in the room I’m trapped in,
In silence, fore it’s insane to vent by scream or shout,
Judged and charged for every mental sin,

Imprisoned, I never feel rested,
Exhausted trying to keep my mind sharp,
History forgiven, but I’m not accepted,
Seconds, hour, as I mentally cry and carp,

Days on end getting bested,
Drugged, my traumas they pierce and poke,
Building walls, while my minds molested,
Individuality embers into smoke,

Cutting brain apart, they mold,
Feeling self losing grip,
Struggling to keep my hold,
All I got not to slip,

I just want to be free,
My clarity and learned self is hazy,
Gods, some force help me!
I, think, I think I’m going crazy...

The most accurate tag on a blog post that I have ever used has been #transgenderRAGE.
2. The first hospital psych ward that I went to, they put a little sign on my room door that had PRIESTLY typed out on it with little puppies on the sign.
3. The orderlies there used male pronouns and referred to me as Priestly. Which made me feel better.
4. But, when I confronted the main doctor there, name rhymed with “cranberry,” he accused me of using identifying as a trans male as a diversion tactic.
5. I hated him, but bull shat my way through the sessions and got discharged after a week.
6. Months later, cue the next hospital visit. This time, it was just a diversion tactic so I didn’t off myself. Had my therapist drive me down there, I was surprised that she didn’t put on the child locks. Though, I never have thought of throwing myself from a moving vehicle.
7. In that ward, they just couldn’t accept the fact that, even though it wasn’t on my birth certificate, that my name was Priestly.
8. They used parenthesis, quotation marks, and had Sarla as my first name on my door.
9. My name is not a parenthesis.
10. My name is not a quotation mark.
11. My name is NOT Sarla. Though that is a beautiful name. San skrit for precious and all.
12. I am not a thing to be swept under the rug. I am not a girl. I am a boy. My name is Priestly. Do not down play me. I am not a “diversion tactic.” I am a living, breathing, feeling, beautiful boy.
13. My name is Priestly.

6 0’ clock
and the string of doors on the block
creak open in unison,
The briny smell of sizzling, leathery bacon accretes,
Seeping forth from pale shutters,
Peeling past the cars, stripping beige paint off the sides of houses.
The morning drizzle, forming tiny rainbows,
You would think it was acid rain,
melting away the plastic people.

Midday, after only an hour passes
and white wine splashes
like crashing waves in the crystalline stemware,
Where orderlies dazedly rescue their children from the montessories
Where power lines crack like whips,
So generously oozing sustenance to babes.
The civiliter mortuus, roam their undead domain,
Like a swarm of cockroach wasps
speed walking in parasitic pairs
darting through Safeway aisles,
Demolishing houses of white chocolate, and roasting sweet nothings
On the new George Foreman Grill ™ .

Every house on loan to apathetic debtors
They come to yours with their holy letters
PTA, … IRA … NSA … HOA
They proselytize, prioritize
Themselves over forest bears and wolves,
But where only hedge trimmers growl
The only Tuesday sounds are the behemoth
Devouring your trash,
And where leaf blowers asthmatically howl.

Standing under a lone street light
Not a sound Or motion in sight.
Darkness blankets the streets
Masking people I've yet to meet
Walking aimlessly, corner to corner
Mind is racing thinking of horror
Asking questions to myself
Wondering if I'll ever get help
Out of the hall they swarm to grab me
Tie me up and back they drag me
Once again I've escaped my room
Once again the orderlies Loom
That Through all the pain
They tell me I'm insane
That no man could possibly endure
Loves departure.

So the people-stealers say
we will make you a buck
and have you
make a rod for your own back
so I showed some my rod
alas, they all got crazed and jealous
that beast is banned
erase him and his name and wipe him out
and pray ask
the Serjeant-at-arms if the flunkies and orderlies
are missing any mahogany truncheon
and do at once
tell all the ladies of this fair and tender isles
they will suffer the pain of death by hot rod insertion
if they ever open their front doors or backdoors
for a banned savage beast is on the loose
and we don't have adequate weapons
call the Red-coats and inform they come with plenty recruits
what do you mean they do not possess adequate weapons as well

The Dolphin and I.

I think it was in 1967 when the Junta of Greek coronels
took power, I was in Piraeus on holiday
the water on the stretch is calm, and one day I met a dolphin
we swam side by side and when I got tired I hold around
her she was helping me ashore.
We had a platonic affair kissing and cuddling like lovers
beautiful days and she was always there waiting for me.
It came to an abrupt end when one evening I criticized
the junta which consist of four rather dim officers and
for good measure had a go at the Orthodox priests,
who looked like they were eating a cow a day.
I blame the ouzo.
I had been overheard and the police. came drove me
to the airport and there was no time to say goodbye.
It must have been disheartening for the dolphin it must
have waited for a day, we were lovers torn apart by politic.
There was another coup, and the colonels were exiled to an
an island that had an asylum were, they became orderlies
which they liked so much that when they were forgiven
stayed on because the mad did as they were told.
But I cannot forgive them for destroying a beautiful love story