⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️

Over the duration of high school,
there is one fear that eclipses
the daily rumination of my thoughts.

Behind sepulchred eyelids,
burn the imaginings

of wasp-needled syringes

straitjackets curling around bodies
with noose-like exactness

a padded room
absorbing brain-curdling screams
into its pink insulation.

At the time,
I was petrified that my newly-discovered
flirtation with self-harm
would land me a permanent stay in an asylum.

The rational part of me knew
that they don't call them
asylums anymore.

The rational part of me knew
there would be no syringes
or straitjackets
or pink, padded rooms.

It was the principle

If it was decided that I was
"an immediate risk to myself"--
a decision that would
incorporate the voices
of the people who barely knew me
but deny me my own voice--
I would be admitted
to a psychiatric ward,
and it would be against my will.

It wouldn't matter
if it was at the Children's Hospital or not--
It wouldn't matter if the walls
were coated with those
sickeningly bright colours
or if there was an Xbox
in the common area.

You can dress up a prison cell
as vibrant as you'd like.
But, by principle,
it's still a prison cell.

When they strip you
of your clothes,
and force you into
their bleak hospital gowns,
they also strip you
of your independence.

(You aren't even allowed
to wear your school cardigan,
the one whose soft, green fabric
you nestle against your fingertips
when you need comforting.

What makes you think
you can leave when you want to?)

See,
doc keeps ya locked up
until he's snuffed the
crazy outta you.

They don't like using
the word
crazy
anymore, either.

So,
like the prison cell,
they play dress up
with your "crazy",
draping it in euphemisms like

unstable.

erratic.

incapacitated.

suicidal--

Once this word is used to label you,
you are never quite able to
abandon its connotation of
madness--
a reputation of inferiority.

And everyone believes
that they are only doing what's best for you,
that hospitalization is the only thing
that will save you from yourself,
when, in fact, it's the ultimatums
and the countless visits to the ER
and the way you are treated--
like a poor ***** lying in wait
to be put down--
that destroys you.

The memories still
bleed fresh most nights.

I seethe at
the mistreatment and
the betrayal and
the destruction
like an army of bees
whose hive has been kicked in,
a snow-globe convulsing
between careless hands.

I was kinder
before they stole away
the last moon-slivers of hope
I held between heart and ribs,
between lips and flower petals.

The nectar has been
exorcised from my soul,
leaving only infestation behind.


(and there is no escaping this swarm)