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I met a woman in the psych ward and something felt like that should have been me.
She had gauze wrapped around her wrist like I had felt so many times before, but these wounds had kept her here.
I had been sent home.
I never needed stitches, but I couldn't have a needle,
so I was always left with the common thread of being sent home.
I was never taken seriously until one day I was,
but I'd forgotten how to take it any way at all.
The woman in the ward would wander the halls,
hauling her hidden distress in the dressing.
I wondered if she'd also been told 'it wasn't that bad,'
but if she was, she might have been home by now.
Something keeps asking why she hadn't been me.
I was so confused about where they said I should be and didn't know how to prove if I knew where that was.
Dismissed from all urgency by nurses with certainty, but implored by all others who glanced at my wrist;
each party so confident I'd be in hands that were better as long as those hands weren't theirs.
I was scrubbed from this place of belonging while being too stable for the people in scrubs.
Maybe that's why I stay as close as I can to the psych ward while still holding the key card to leave:
I had lingered in limbo too long to know which direction to go. What do I believe? Which loss do I grieve?
I had proved myself too healthy; I had proved myself too sick.
I was a revolving door patient who never got admitted.
why wasn't i enough for the sick or the well?

what am i?
Madalyn Aug 24
IVC
To crave,
Wails of agony, voices soaked in terror?
Call after call, message after message.
Care, love, sympathy?
Succor, surveillance, support?
Tear after tear, hands shaking and grasping?
Pity, solace, warmth?

To receive,
Levigating guilt, being disintegrated.
Evanescensing from reality.
Blood clotting and drying.
Those who are paid to give care,
Who seem as though sympathy;
Hadn't glazed over their eyes in decades.
A room so cold and sterile,
That not even the warmth of my breath
Could stop my bones from shivering under my skin.
Desolating abandonment,
Hums of fluorescent lights,
In chorus with sobs of despondency

It isn't what I wanted.
But it is what I deserved.
Filomena Aug 2022
Recreational Insanity
Unconditional Inanity
Impractical Commonality
Warm Welcome to the Family
Psych ward poetry.
Set 3, poem 30.
Filomena Aug 2022
My feeling word is adjective.
My mood number is one to ten.
My goal was met, and now I get
To wonder when I'm free again.
I guess I'm unimaginative.
Psych ward poetry.
Set 3, poem 38.
Allison Wonder Nov 2019
Crisp white sheets
fall into routine
no more "sweets"
they must wean

in the psychiatric ward
Prompt: Hospital in 16 words
Arden Mar 2019
1) Mental hospitals are more like dramas/comedies than horror
    films. When people think of psych wards they think of criminally
    insane people rocking back and forth, talking to their imaginary
    friends and throwing chairs. Don't get me wrong, there's some of
    those. But most of us just do word searches, color, joke about
    serious things.
2) We aren't monsters, we are your brothers, your daughters, your
    mother, your co-worker we are just regular people who have lost
    our way and need some help finding the path again
3) I am closer to people I knew for 2 weeks than I will ever be with
    anyone on the outside. Yes we all call it the outside
4) Sometimes talking to people who understand what you're going
    through is more therapeutic than the actual therapy groups. This
    is not to say that the doctors there are crap it is just to say that no  
    matter how much they read and listen they will never truly
    understand what it feels like unless they have been there and we
    can tell who has been there, they go the extra mile to make us
    feel like people
5) It's not a vacation, it's not fun, it's not an escape from the real
    world. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is work.
6) Everyone in there is a person in unbearable pain but it isn't just a
    bunch of people sitting around crying. We go from group to
    group and then color and go to bed nothing about it is really fun
    but you get used to it
7) The mental hospital is like a camp for empty people, just like a
    band camp we can all relate to each other and makes you feel
    less alone
8) Getting discharged it a great feeling because you are free, but it
    is also completely terrifying, in the hospital it's safe, people get it,
    there is always someone to talk to and now you're all alone
9) Just because I've spent 7 and a half weeks in a mental hospital
    over 2 stays doesn't mean I am fixed there is no cure for my
    illnesses and that's just the way it is
10) We are not who you think, the kindest people I've ever met
     were also the ones hurting the most.
Day Jan 2017
11 days, I spent in grey hospital socks
wandering halls bare, not even clocks
17 girls, all torn and broken inside
opened our wrists, drank cyanide
"behavior heath", but we knew was psych
held wandering souls, all pale and ghostlike
sat in a circle, we shared and we cried
of times we stole, drank, smoked and lied
stories of ****, abuse and pain
somehow all one and the same
different faces and different lives
but most chose to end it with knives
but failure brought us all to this place
to learn a new name, gain a new face
fed us some pills and watched how we'd do
if we'd scream and suddenly turn blue
but only a few continued to fall
and theirs are the saddest stories of all
my heart broke each night as I sat and heard
one of the girls minds became blurred
still even now, I shed a tear
for every lost soul, that we never hear
Recently went to an intensive inpatient behavior health center after a major panic attack and breakdown. I was suicidal and was diagnosed with major depression. This experience, really changed me and opened my mind so much. More to come . I give thanks for this site for giving me a positive way to cope. You all are amazing. <3
B Young Apr 2016
On the mental ward,
there is no "Lord,"
no "Savior."
Only society's leftovers,
shuffled to and fro and
around and around we go.
Anwar Francis Jan 2016
Down the hallway
dimly lit eyes peak open
from pores on the pale painted skin
covering each door.
Jesus sings a song
while listening to stories
of the resurrection from other people
on their fourth trip
back to this world.
Walls white as paper
scratched with caveman markings
like Lascaux
hidden under sound
from black screens
with holes in their faces
opening and closing
at the touch of their faces.
Bushes of green trees cover concrete
like an oasis in the sand.
At its end
a large window
keeps thick skinned
scaly trees at bay
near a chair, cushioned and pink
pointing back up the hallway
from which to sit
and ponder these things.
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