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If you stare out of a window Across a bleak garden some September morning If the neem tree in the garden reminds you of home Vast, old, timeless If you remember playing under a neem tree in Allahabad And you can almost hear the laughter of children as they play In the heat of a sultry afternoon in June And because the window is small and barred and cannot open Because you want to breathe freedom Because you want to shower without them watching Because you silently swallow your screams Because your mind is starting to get fuzzy Because your tongue is starting to slur Because you have started drooling Because your fingers shake when you write Because the words Ritalin Prozac Depakote Lithium Have started sounding like poetry Because you feel your resistance slowly dying Because you start to say the words they want to hear Because you know the glazed look in the eyes of others Is in your eyes too Because this confluence of muscle and bone is wasting Because you sleep for hours Because you now smile at your doctors Because you scream when the ECT paraphernalia is wheeled in Because no one cares Because once you’re labeled, you will be forever Because asylums were once freak shows Because asylum is not what it means You go back to staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring
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Feb 29, 2016
Feb 29, 2016 at 1:05 PM UTC
Staring
If you stare out of a window Across a bleak garden some September morning If the neem tree in the garden reminds you of home Vast, old, timeless If you remember playing under a neem tree in Allahabad And you can almost hear the laughter of children as they play In the heat of a sultry afternoon in June And because the window is small and barred and cannot open Because you want to breathe freedom Because you want to shower without them watching Because you silently swallow your screams Because your mind is starting to get fuzzy Because your tongue is starting to slur Because you have started drooling Because your fingers shake when you write Because the words Ritalin Prozac Depakote Lithium Have started sounding like poetry Because you feel your resistance slowly dying Because you start to say the words they want to hear Because you know the glazed look in the eyes of others Is in your eyes too Because this confluence of muscle and bone is wasting Because you sleep for hours Because you now smile at your doctors Because you scream when the ECT paraphernalia is wheeled in Because no one cares Because once you’re labeled, you will be forever Because asylums were once freak shows Because asylum is not what it means You go back to staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring Staring
jhilmil-breckenridge
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Feb 29, 2016
Feb 29, 2016 at 1:05 PM UTC
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