I've been so curious
about people who burn down their home's,
and drive their families off of mountain sides.
The ones who take their live's, pack up everything and leave
behind the ones they cannot imagine living without.
The people who cause their own hurt.
The lucky ones who gamble everything away.
The ones who let their live's tumble down and blow away.

I've stood in front of this mirror and watched myself bleed enough times to know what a good thing is.

I still light the match and burn it all to the ground,
cross over the barrier fast enough to free fall,
break your heart time and time again,
leave you behind when I know
you're the only thing stopping everything from completely unraveling.
I put you down like a bet,
and lose you every time.

I **** us,
over and over and over, again.
It's no wonder why I hurt so badly in the middle of the night,
and can't trust myself with my own heart.
I do this to myself,
these are self-inflicted tragedies.

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

Some of her wiring had come loose
She had burnt out like toast
left on too high a setting

Now her brain needed a reboot
It had come to this
be plugged into a mainframe

she did not feel a thing
just a small sharp scratch
and the pleasant scent of the oxygen mask

wakes up a little blurry
mouth a little furry
but new connections made

a few weeks on
she can spark up a smile again
an electro convulsive treat