Johnny brown is captured in the psych ward


You see with the cannula stuck in Johnny’s arm he started to hear voices from his crazy head and David and raeleen sent him to Ron so he can be able to help him and they weighed him and
Tried to give him medication and Johnny replied, I don’t want any of your fucken medication it is causing really bad side effects and Ron said Johnny, you need this because your mind hasn’t been better since we inserted the cannula into your arm and it made your arm swell up, I understand your frustration and you need to go on abilify to calm yourself down and Johnny said I am not sick well I am but not mentally it is physical and the doctors put the cannula in my arm my arms swell up and you guys are saying that I have a mental problem when it is your own fucken fault and you are going to give me a shot of a psychotic medication which will not cure me instead of a antibiotic to help relieve the swelling
So, Ron if you are a psychiatrist ******* and send me back to the fucken doctors because these aren’t a mental illness it is my fucken arm which you quacks caused by sticking a fucken cannula in my arm
And Ron said there is nothing I can do, the doctors said you need a mental health assessment and Johnny said if you give me psychotic medication I won’t take it
This is your way of saying your not negligent and you fucken are, Ron said ok I will give you a brain scan to see if there is anything there, because if there isn’t anything there, I don’t Know I just don’t like your ***** mouth, Johnny said I was meeting my son at the club for a beer to celebrate getting out and you guys are sticking me in here because of a bit of ***** mouth, Ron asked are you hearing voices and Johnny said my voices are saying get me the **** out of here and send me back to the fucken ward
I am not fucken crazy like I have no idea of killing a woman and putting her head in my fridge and Ron said, let’s talk about that then and Johnny said I am not going to do that, Ron said why say it if you are not mentally ill and I won’t stab a gay man in the chest ******* think I am crazy
You guys should see a psychiatrist for sticking a cannula in my arm and forcing
A bit of swelling
I will soo you ya ****
Ron put Johnny in isolation to calm him down and force fed psychotic medication into him, mind you this put Johnny right to sleep

Pain and sorrow often hold either side of the hands of death. But sometimes death can be a beautiful thing; it liberates one from the pain and sorrow that often hold the hands of life.
The sound of oxygen waves, crashing through the thin plastic cannula, it's high tide on the beaches of her lungs. Her lungs are slowly being swallowed by the volume of the sea, her eyes heavy from the weight of the world.
I hold her in my arms and whisper softly, "what are you thinking about?"
She said the Ocean.
Because that's her favorite place to be.
-I prayed to God this morning. I asked him to let her be one with the Ocean. Let her soul swim free across the vastness of the sea.
I suggested that He send the most breathtaking sailboat he has ever created
So she wont lose her breath when she first sets sail across the waves of Heaven
Realizing they stretch out for infinity
Realizing
It's all for her to conquer.

it's june.
your ninety-six year old grandmother wraps her shaking fingers around your hand.
she's dying.
the doctors say she won't make it through the day.
you and your family gather around her bed like crows anxiously circling something from above.
waiting.
your grandmother reaches for your high school year book: ninth grade.
your stomach knots up, and you're not sure why.
silently she flips through the pages with her free hand,
the only sound being that from the oxygen flowing through her cannula.
suddenly she gasps,
and it scares you half to death because you know that she's already far more than halfway there herself,
her clammy fingers clench tighter around yours as she points to a picture on page 57.
everyone in the room looks down at the floor,
as if it is suddenly fascinating,
but you stare at her photo as your grandmother cries and says
"she was the one I was hoping you'd end up with"

it's july.
your grandmother has been gone for one month but you can't get the words she last spoke to you out of your mind.
ninth grade.
high school seems like an eternity ago -
homecoming and prom and then graduation -
you did all of these incredible things together.
but it wasn't enough for you.

it's august.
most people your age will soon be returning to school,
nearing the end of their masters by now.
you can't help but to picture her, smiling for her student ID photo and shuffling through the narrow aisles of an enormous school's book store,
piling her arms full of anything with a hardback and a spine that she can get her little hands on,
books, books, so many **** books -
who the hell's going to hold all of those **** books for her? -
she loved to read.
she loved to write.
you remember the day her first book was published, how she cried for hours and smiled for days,
enthralled with the knowledge that she was now an author.
you watched her sign books, you watched them sign checks,
but you knew she couldn't have cared less about their money. she didn't want it.
you remember all she wanted was for people to read her book. you remember her hunched over her laptop,
constantly updating the website that kept track of how many copies she'd sold.
you remember her signing your book.
all she wanted was for you to read it.
you remember that you never did.

it's september.
you never went back to college.
without her, it just wasn't right for you.
but still, you find yourself camped outside of the university you know she now attends,
looking at every face that exists the building and hoping to god that this one is her.
you wait for an hour,
picturing with giddy excitement the moment your eyes will meet. although there's a crowd of a hundred other bumbling college students you are positive
her eyes will instantly be drawn to yours.
you wait two hours.
and suddenly,
she's there, you see her,
god, after all this time you see her;
and she's still so **** beautiful it nearly blows your mind. you never knew one person could contain so much beauty.
just as you're about to sprint and sweep her off her feet,
you stop dead in your tracks.
the fellow who politely held the door open for the girl
who you realize is in fact no longer a girl
but a woman,
the woman who you used to love,
he takes the books from her hands and wraps his free arm tightly around her waist -
you remember her waist, her hips, her belly button, all the skin you touched and kissed a million times over,
he's touching her now as if
there was never anyone else
before.
you watch although it kills you
because it's simply impossible to turn and look away.
he pushes her bangs - had she always had bangs? - behind her ears and kisses her for what feels like a forever of its own,
and she smiles.
she never takes her eyes away from him.
she doesn't even see you standing there.

it's october.
you drink now, because it's the only way to forget.
you drive yourself near insane wondering how you ever let the love of your life slip right through your undeserving fingers.
you always knew you didn't deserve her.
you just never thought she would ever think the same.

it's november,
but the days seem to run together now.
weeks go by without any attention from you,
and this doesn't matter.
nothing matters.
you lost her.
you remember the first time you ever saw her,
you were fourteen years old.
it was january, but you were wearing shorts. the first thing she ever said to you was "why are you wearing shorts? don't you know it's winter?"
and suddenly, you didnt know.
you didn't know anything,
you didnt know it was winter or monday or 2:52 p.m,
you couldn't tell the sun from the moon or red from blue or anything that didn't have to do with her.
you stood there and you didn't say a word, because you didn't know how to do that either.
but she smiled, and she laughed,
and the sound was enough
to carry you all the way to this day
where you stand drunk,
alone,
without her.

The forgotten essential workers
Who is seldom mention.
Who is so often belittle,
Porters,
Cooks,
Laundry workers
Dish-washers,
Elevator-repair men
Recreations,
Front Desk clerks
Certified Nurse’s Aide
Home health aide
Waiters,
God! Oh how hard we work!
Private’s aides

Now as we celebrate Juneteenth 19
Black lives matters, can we really be seen
After four hundred years of oppressions
Can we tossed back river of tears
we are in 2020 is this our commission?

We as Essential workers in your nursing homes
Being tested twice a week,
By your essential worker phlebotomist
Who puncture my vein with his cannula?
For the governor executives order
listen up you uncouth nurses who poke
The swab sticks deep into my nose.
Listen this quackery has to end!
Pandemic, politics, election strategy
We essential need more respect.
You with your white privileges, and your treats

(RE: PCR swabbing, week being on Wednesday and ends on Tuesday.
If you work 4 or more days you need to be swabbed 2x per week
In a 48hrs time frame, if not you will be taken off the schedule
You will be humiliated, said the Administrator  Mr. Sal
Because he is not a babysitter there to reminds you..
Said a non- professional white privileges)
as the city navigate the pandemic
moving on to injustices of systemic racism,
poverty, militarism and
a war economy:

Mr. Governor Cuomo: I cannot breathe..
I
Mr. Governor Cuomo: I cannot breathe

Again without control
Again now filled with fear
Waiting for the nurse to call
"Is Michael Hibbs still here?"

Just waiting for the cannula
Just waiting for the bed
Again I fight against the
Ticking clock within my head

I wish to skip a fortnight
I wish to close my eyes
And wake up in a time where
The light of joy will rise

Just wake up when it's over
Just wake up when it's done
I wish to not know what happens
Just that I know I won

Again I stand a captive
Waiting to be free
To wake up as someone else
Is truly the wish for me

I always think of you.
I think of the color green:
the tint of old photos,
the lively dancing of your eyes,
your turtleneck in your
official schoolteacher portrait--
of summer--
the grass under my feet
as I run around the yard
so big to little me
and your wrinkled hand keeping me from running too far--
your curtains hanging in your dining room
when the sunlight peeked through them--
the cushions of the dining room chair
where you sat and talked and ate and
made funny faces
sometimes with curlers still in your hair--
the stems and leaves of wildflowers
that Grandpa picked for you
sitting in a coffee tin on the microwave--
the clover planted in empty ice cream pails
in the living room
and you telling me I was lucky
because I'd found one with four leaves--
the grassy **** blanket on the fold-out
bed in the living room where you
sometimes napped--
the bitter tea you drank
for your weak heart--
and the markings on the cannula tube
snaking up
to the oxygen mask
covering your smiles---
your laughing green eyes
on your last day.

John Green and Jay Asher
they are at war
between each other
in an epic battle of epic proportions
to see who can glorify and romanticize
the most terrible and potentially life-ending things

ACT 1:
Jay Asher started first
with 13 Reasons Why in 2007
because why can’t suicide and depression
and blaming that on other people
be romantic, huh?!

Well from first hand experience
there is nothing romantic about being so depressed
that you want to die

I was 12 years old
two years after Jay Asher’s book came out
and I was in my room
not knowing about the book
cutting myself for the first time
and jesus christ I bled like a stuck pig

Fast forward to seventh grade
three years after the book was out on shelves
and I had my own copy
that I read through in one day
and came away from it with a vaguely
sick feeling in my stomach

Because I saw myself
in that girl
who wanted to die so badly
that she actually went through with it
but what I couldn’t understand was why
she felt the need to set up this sick game
where she gave 13 whole reasons why
to her fellow students
some of which she had never talked to
they were each why she had killed herself
like what the hell

And even more so
I couldn’t understand why
Jay Asher thought he had the right
to write this book
to make suicide and depression
into this tragic and romantic
and horribly glorified thing
because being suicidal is just so much fun

But what wasn’t fun was
jumping ahead a few more years
to when I was 16
and doing online school because of the massive
mental breakdown I’d had over Christmas break
in my freshman year of high school
and I tried to **** myself

And there was nothing romantic
about waking up in the middle of the night
and then in the morning
and having to tell my mother
that I had taken forty of my sleeping pills
there was nothing romantic about that at all

ACT 2:
then in 2012
just five years after Jay Asher’s book
it was John Green’s turn to fire back
and since depression and suicide and blaming that
on other people was already taken
why John just shrugged his shoulders and
made it his mission to
romanticize and glorify the big C of diseases
CANCER

Because what isn’t romantic
about these two dying kids
and so many others and chemo
that makes you puke and strips your body
of its immune system so that a cold
might **** you
and what isn’t there to glorify about radiation to ****
the thing that is attacking your body
from the inside out and even if the radiation
does **** your white blood cells
and leaves you wide open for all other kinds of infection
at least the cancer is temporarily under control right

Because even if you lose your hair
and your brain has a potential of being damaged
as well as your thyroid
blood system
heart
gastrointestinal tract
reproductive tract
and bone marrow
just think
an author may choose to make a romance story
around this disease that is slowly killing you
and doesn’t that make you feel better

And even though
if Augustus Waters was real
almost every girl and guy within a five
mile radius would probably sneer
at the cigarette that was never lit
because it’s all about the metaphor sweetheart
he was just the perfect guy in the book and then
in the movie where the audience was
actually able to kind of not really see the
prosthetic leg that that character had
because hey why just go after cancer
when you can go after amputees as well
go big or go home ya know

And even though
the book wasn’t so much about cancer
as it was about this girl
that even though she literally has to
wear a cannula all the time
and drag around an oxygen tank so that she
can even breathe
at least she can still somehow have *** right
and there’s no bruises in the morning
because that wouldn’t be realistic to
someone suffering from cancer right

This is where you nod along
and try not to think of the
people you know that have had cancer
two of which have died
and just get through the book
because who are you to let the
cute little pastel blue packet of tissues
that come with the book
go to waste huh

ACT 3:
Well god
big kahuna in the sky that you are
you see mam sir holy mother and father
I have never harmed a book before
except in that I dog-ear the pages
I wanted to burn these two books so bad
that it almost physically hurt
like going to the funeral of a good friend
and I saw red I was so angry
and it hurt so much

Well god you see
I have a proposition for you
okay and it’s a good one

Well god you see
I’ll go out and buy these two books
The Fault In Our Stars
and 13 Reasons Why
and I’ll build a great big funeral pyre
and burn them into the ground
okay and then you take those ashes
they’re all for you
take them
and give me back my friends

Not that he was light on his feet before,
But Twinkle doesn’t dance anymore.
He doesn’t talk a lot, and when he does
It’s jumbled and mumbled, we make a fuss
Trying to understand just what he means
Up/down, left/right, yes/no, joggers/jeans
When once he’d clear a buffet in a blink
He won’t eat his lunch, let alone drink.
He made mowing look easy, I struggle
And instead of him I’m the one the dog cuddles.
As wobbly as me on ten pints or more
Inevitably we’d both end on the floor
Always clean shaven has turned awry
With a full blown beard it’s another guy
Sat watching the same **** telly
New fancy chair and slightly smaller belly.
Twinkle gets grumpy when there’s a  cannula to insert,
Doesn’t trust the nurse when she said it wouldn’t hurt.
Breathing was easy for Twinkle last year
But not so now, it’s why we’re here
Waiting for a bed in a place where there’s plenty,
The problem is that none of them are empty.
Doctors a-plenty and many nurses too,
The only thing lacking is something to do.
In Game of Thrones jammies he sits in his chair,
He says he’s hot rather be in underwear
Or anywhere I think, just not on this ward
As everyone here is terminally bored.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Flying to London on Nitrous Oxide

                                              For Dr. Armstrong

Doctor A. dropped a black cloth over my eyes
As if I were facing a firing squad in a vinyl chair
An uncomfortable vinyl chair
The firing squad is not in the chair; I am

How silly to think of a firing squad in a vinyl chair I mean how would they all fit, eh

I give the finger to an oxygen thingie
And air is piped into my itchy nose
scratch scratch
“I’m turning the nitrous on now, just let me know…”
What shall I think about during dentistry…?

A holiday in London long ago
I’m walking along crowded Oxford Street
A motor-scooter cop is writing a ticket
For a tiny little car that’s double-parked

Across the street is a used-book shop
I want to browse the old Oxford editions
(OUCH!)
But first I’ll find breakfast
I’ll find breakfast
I’ll find breakfast
(oh that one’s only a little ouch)
And what a happy breakfast!
In this little café with windows all steamed
And I find a seat among the shoppers and workers and shoppers and workers and the nice English waitress is from Viet-Nam and I was in Viet-Nam and she is still from Viet-Nam I was only in Viet-Nam and she is very English and writes on a pad eggs and sausages and toast and eggs and sausages and toast and after breakfast I’ll walk across Oxford Street for Oxford Books I can see in the dusty window and the nice English waitress takes my order for eggs and sausages and toast and somehow I never get across Oxford Street to browse the Oxford books because “I’m switching you back to Oxford oxygen now and you’re all done just sit there for a few minutes” and she wipes the drool off my chin and the ordinary air hisses through the nasal cannula and I feel a little fuzzy and I’m not in London and there are no eggs and sausages and toast but yes I can stand now and yes just go see Erin at the front for the paperwork and then I’ll ride in the passenger seat to Jack in the Box for some sort of golly-gee-**** breakfast swaddled in paper and coffee in a paper cup which I will have to chew and swallow on the right because my left is all numb and I’ll dribble on myself and I wish I were in London but I’m not but coffee from Jack in the Box after being NPO after midnight is okay too…