Clonazepam, Lorazepam, Diazepam, Alprazolam, if you've been acquainted with benzodiazepines,
Then you will know the hassle that I hearby mean.
Names so crazy it's like they fit your mind,
Yet without them they can be so unkind.

Clonazepam, Lorazepam, Diazepam, Alprazolam,
Tiny little pills, oh how you can truly and seriously help me to heal!
Yet, you make us happy as we should be without you to feel,
Because I'd rather remember you as an old friend who was there for a while to keep me "still".

Clonazepam Lorazepam, Diazepam, Alprazolam...
I know it's hard to say goodbye,
So for now I'll just say "goodnight",
And maybe one day I'll see without you-
the true happiness of daylight.*

❥

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines

Dina?
Deanna?
Deena?

What was her name?
A diminutive of something
Or a shortening.
And I don’t even think that I am close

I miss you.

a small concrete table
white
a group of girls
Smoking and smoking and smoking
Trading lipgloss
I don’t remember what we talked about

But I do remember that the meds made you so
Hungry
“Are you gonna eat that?”

That’s how it begins in such places
Passing off a cig
Or trading processed food
Or just giving it away.

Have a lie down
or hand over the pill stored in your cheek
for someone
needier.

You said after your second plateful of anything
Make sure you let me know if I start getting fat

I tried not to follow you around
We had breakfast
Cigarette breaks
lunch and dinner
I could have sat with you all day and night

But I let you roam like a yearling
talking too much to too many people
Spinning around in the hallways
The skinny girl
on the floor doing a striptease on her back
in the streaming sunlight
I could tell
That you got paid for this at some point
Even the imaginary boa scared these boys

You loved to talk about God
I, however, do not

You loved a ****** ******
They were your favorite
and would reminisce with the junkies
Always sitting close-by
You claimed that you could make a man cry
By what you could do to his body
I can only imagine
what you’ve done so far
At your age
and you have a kid

I know
that you’re frightened
to be alone
with your mother
She’s so small
You wouldn’t want to hurt her

And I see her
that one time
with candies and soda
that you made her bring from
the 99 cent store to share
with all these people that don’t like you
that she is
a tiny thing
Yes
anyone could crush her
I see your point.

Deena
Dina
Deana

I can’t remember your name

You’d wake me for breakfast
Or, I you
You said the voices never stop in your head
Not just voices but other strange noises too
You acted like it was
a drag
But in fact you were **** scared

I can hear sounds too I offered
Bells
And Strings
Faint Voices calling my name
Offering succinct advice
Can’t everyone?
Leaning against a wall
with you at my feet
I saw your head snap
To the right
I said
Don’t worry
I heard that too
And you were so relieved
You grasped my feet in gratitude

You said that you are three.
Dread is the bad one
a male
And another
a ****** female who’s name
I can’t remember either
I suggested that there were more
Perhaps.
I met the ***** and I did not like her
at all
In anger I returned your sweatshirt
And you said
You know she’s terrible
I told you that
Take back the shirt
It’s cold

The men here don’t understand
our
Relationship
They assume that it’s lovey
Their minds are blown by
Companionship in difficult circumstances
Holding hands might help you through
You never know until you try

You loved to have arguments over the Bible
I would make a lot of noise to shut it down
I cannot listen to that
You would talk on that phone on the wall
With the father of your child
About god
You missed your boy’s
first day
of kindergarten
You called him on that phone to make sure that he got the plastic truck
or some such toy in your absence

I wonder when you gave up your life
When an injection of Ativan in your ***
and a night
In an darkened empty room
Bound
became an ideal resolution.
You couldn’t figure out
why you had a lump on your head
And I explained that
it was the result of
banging it repeatedly
against the wall.
Side effects of Lorazepam include:
Little recall

You seemed to have a plan.
Visiting and writing up the coast
The Dean Moriarty of Hospitals
But what about your kid?
The doctors say you can’t leave until you’re well
I couldn’t even tell what’s wrong exactly
Or what he’s really trying to tell you
Other than too much too soon
But that’s every girl in LA
Isn’t it?
You said that
It
Emerged at age 24.

I think about your son.
I can’t believe that you have one.
And your mother
Who adopted you.
What did she in fact bring home?

Deanna.
Dina.

When they called to say that my car was here
That I could go
You covered my neck
With kisses
And said Thank You Thank You
I Don’t Know
What I Would Have Done Without You

What is your name?

Dee.
D.
Just the letter.
I remember
Thank you.

I don't need drugs. My brain is drugs.

Maybe it's a side effect of a mother that dropped acid for the first trimester of pregnancy and then some.

Maybe it's a side effect of the abusive step father that told me I would never amount to anything and that I am *******.

My brain processes things at about a hundred miles per hour. In conversations I am always three steps ahead of what ever was said last. I make connections in things that are unconnected.

They tell me this is adult ADHD. They tell me I should be proscribed a pill to help my brain focus.

But focus isn't what I want. Nor is the drowsiness that comes with Lorazepam, the fog that goes with Prozac. I have been separately proscribed these things without ever filling the bottles.

But I fear that if I fix all my chemical imbalances, my medical maladies, that I will disappear into a fog.

Who am I without my OCD, without my brain over processing, over loving, over caring. Without the pain in my chest from another panic, my bouncing off the walls and singing to myself.

Maybe I am unwell.

But who am I without my unwellness?

There were always so many lizards and cat statues made out of china. But at some point what started to matter more were the boys on the pubescent school bus yelling obscenities and stealing ****** kisses from girls stuffing their bra and being too cool to wear Limited Too. It became difficult to imagine the lizard cage behind the duplex, a chain-linked refrigerator box, when there was a school dance to be embarrassed at while forming dance circles, soda can in hand. Then standing on the corner waiting for my dad to take me home before any of the late night talk shows aired.

Flash-forward: A blow-up air mattress in the middle of the living room at five in the morning and we were high.

We’re growing up from: the VW that smelled of crayons,
skipping class to go to the library downtown,
the greasy spoon diner,
the Goodwill,
fall outs, anxiety, lorazepam, writing ****** poetry,
getting popsicles from whole foods and eating them in the park during winter.

The sun’s lavender light peaked through the closed blinds while the satisfaction of making out with a boy who likes boys felt as good as the realization that girls don’t always have to like boys either.

There’s a chance I could still catch a lizard.
And yea it’s cliché, but **** happens and things change.

This place was new to her
Tendrils of envy
That had over ran her heart
Like spilled ink

The witch gobbles six Lorazepam
Just to survive the after noon
And trips from her botched stride of self righteousness

Her inaccuracy, in her mind is fact

Her sense of superiority over shadows any type of kindness that trickles out every now and then

Her flippant demeanor
Is known and is spoken of in fork tongued folklore

Her spells of insanity and depravity

Leaving all the passes in a stated of relentless unease

She trots the ash covered cobble ****** alleyways of the sullen slums
And the scornful ****** watch from rusted fire escapes
Blades in hand, back-pocket crucifix

They swoop down and surround her

She who caused the drought, the death of all live stock and infants’ demise

She falls to the ground

“May the truths of the universe diminish your incantations!”

She screams

They cover their ears and douse her with holy water

Her skin peels revealing her grotesque scaly red skin
Her yellow eyes gleam as its pupils dilate

“And with these blades of sanctuary we obliterate your being”

A typhoon of stabs follows
And a sacred jar is laid out
To capture her spirit
So it may never return

I'm doing this no justice.
Saving my tongue for dryer days, keeping the ones I actually love from losing their own pinkish tails in my waning nonsense.
Sane and civil... because I am my fathers shifting chameleon; his white blazer and my mothers blood orange; her Lorazepam.
My name alone is treaty.
One lonely gabble lodges itself inside of my esophagus.
Get lost founding father.
Burn harder rebellion.
I need me on my surface, not buried under the expected ammunition of ink.
End your sparkle, sparkler.
Here, your exploding gold only crushes the windpipe of flowers.

I have nightmares that stretch my fears towards our waking sun.
Yawning out the last sighs of moon.
Once again, I hesitate and stumble on tongue.
I've seen my words startle rust like the flat cat call 'boos’ of halloween towards November.
Since I've been buried, halloween hasn't missed a year.
And the gibberish of its mask will always sting as resonant.