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.

If there's nothing they can do,
nothing I can be taught
in order to push the cold away,
please tell me at least the food
will be okay.

The last time, sauce dripping
over my teeth like I am supposed
to sink down into it, pour myself over
the meaty softness of someone else's body
and rest, being absorbed
into their consciousness until
I am nothing more than
a weight on their tongue.

Tell me I'll be able to sleep. They were
always leaving the door open,
the lights still on, I can't sleep knowing
that any moment something could happen
and it could come for me.

Tell me the faucets will pour out
cold water so I can wake up. Tell me
there will be a mirror so I can watch
the lessons taking hold
across my jawline.

I need to know they'll let me in
to see the doctor. Not the one
who tells me everything will be
all right, but the one who has
a plan, who lays everything out
in the simplest terms, so I can
understand.

The one whose mouth zigzags
around broken syllables
like a crooked train track, spitting
Lorazepam, Citalopram, Trazodone,
I don't understand the language
but I know, he does this every day,
points nonsense words at shadows
hoping someday we'll understand.

Maybe I could. If I could only
pull the sauce out from my eardrums,
clear the junk from my tongue and
the wreckage from my teeth;

Mother,
if the food is good,
then maybe someday,
I'll be able
to taste it for
myself.

I keep fighting off these tornadoes that makes my heart pound hard
The tornadoes that comes from anxiety; makes my stomach turn
The hyperventilation blows me down
The dizziness that happens when I can hardly breathe
All i see is a spinning room when I want it stop
I use anything as leverage to help me get
up, and also walk
I sweat without moving
It just feels like I’m exhausted without working hard
and my mind is working ******* me..

Craving for relaxation,
the milligrams called me
Immediately my mind was silenced; in a deep sleep
I sedated myself so I can also sleep
Relieved this anxiety that had me in chains
and took away my mind that is now in pain
Its so tiny, but those benefits are huge
I needed a release from all this tension
The sudden drowsiness wrings out the normality within me
I love the feeling of being sluggish
The sudden calmness got my breathing finally under control
Those bitter thoughts turned sweet
This cold heart turned warm
These muscle spasms loosened up
This tranquilizer targeted all my fears, anxiety, & worries
Now the bed catches me as I embrace this new feeling
Unfortunately it’s temporary
so my mind is jailed,
until its set free

Take these, they say;
They will help, they say.

How ‘bout some venlafaxine?
That will stop you wanting to die.

Bit anxious?
Some lorazepam will fix that!

Oh, how’s your sleeping?
Temazepam, zopiclone!
That’ll do the trick.

Your mood is unstable?
We have something to cure that!
We’ll add on some lithium and quetiapine,
How does that sound?

You’ll be all better in no time.

You take the pills,
Two in the morning (with a large glass of water)
During the day (as needed)
Three more in the evening (after food)
And three at night (an hour before bed)

Am I all better yet?

Well, I guess I don’t feel anxious..
And my mood isn’t all over the place…

In fact; I don’t have a mood at all.

Nothing.

Zombiefied.

Oral pain relievers

         laying in bed,

a hospice bed.

               Favorite meals brought by

                     comers and goers.

Sadness

       pity and low voices are popular.

              Methadone given

lorazepam given

                 a walk to the downstairs bathroom for Pops and I.

        Phones ringing

              California and across the country relatives calling

                   a brother dying of cancer in California as well.

         We pretend to sleep

but,
    
    . ...       it's time for pain meds.

Higher dose of methadone hospice instructs us...

       we comply.

               A new day has dawned

and-

                    trips to the bathroom have stopped.

      Time for a catheter hospice asserts to me,

               I struggle with this decision

      do I invade my Pops even more ?

Ripping myself to shreds,

.......       I reluctantly agree.

I lie next to my Pop's bed on the floor

       dawn has yet to break,

             pounding on the handrails of death's bed is Pops....

                  I need to get the fxxk up !

       I need to *** !!!!

who the fxxk is holding me down ?!?!

             I destroy myself further for Pop's catheterization.

                  For one
hour Pops angrily pounds...

      Higher oral dosage of lorazepam hospice asserts,

               finally the pounding stops

......I break down ,

       telling my older brother that I need him to help me with this ...

              Dawn breaks and Pop's pain is a 7

              the time for ports have come....

        one in each of Pop's arms and upper thighs,

       Methadone is now morphine.

People still coming and going,

        but it's Cindy, Cathy and I that will not allow Pop's end in the hands of strangers.

              Morphine in one port

lorazepam in another...

Morphine becomes tramadol

              breaths become faint...

I lie next to Pops on the green carpeted floor.

                   End stage is over...

it's ended-

       I have lost my Daddy

the cold stethoscope tells me that my Pop's life is over....

          I am amputated limb, numb!

Questions amass from strangers

              a stretcher opens on my Pop's white ceramic tile foyer floor....

               a black body bag unzipped and my Daddy placed inside of it..............¿¿¿¿

      zipped up-

           my mind blacks out from there.

             I finally, weakly stumble to the kitchen and see all of the medications we pumped inside my Daddy.....

           it's clear that we fought hard against end stage cancer with Pops but at what cost to me.....

         for life?

Imagery never alludes me,

           it's a replay,

a broken record,

                        that will never stop,

      .....until my end days....

and this I know !

God ******* ******
Why can't I understand,
I'm flying this plane and can't land it,
After 23 years I thought I'd know how to be a man

My brain is in a wash bucket filled with soap that's clouding up my mind,
Okay, I give.. help, I've lost it, it flew out the window, I'm in a bit of a bind..

Alprazolam
Clonazepram
Diazepam
Lorazepam
Oxazepam
Chlordiazepoxide
Oh my god now I'm afraid of Z's
What happend to you? What caused these?

Those scars on my face or the hole in my heart?
Both
Well **** if I knew I wouldn't be talking to you.
What are you even scared of?
Currently I'm terrified of being afraid,
Like its going to hit me under my feet, numb
It's dumb, its stupid, so I'll just pick apart my heart with pliers, convince myself that  the thoughts in my brain are liars,

Drip now blood and dry before you hit the floor.
mind keeps spinning as my heart sinks in these worries build in a hurry and my heart empties from the pliers, I don't think I can handle the emptiness anymore, who do I ask for help? Where do I go?? Who can keep me from these z's so I can catch up with mine?

I'm so tired..I'm afraid ..

Give me to carry
just a fragment of the cross.
A single thorn, or single lash
to suffer. A drop of blood.

At your worst, holding you
seemed to make the world make sense -
to you, at least -
but the nurses had lorazepam for that
and in more ways than one
I came to know impotence.

Like a supplicant, eating nothing at all
and playing cards with myself
while waiting for the Visitation.

At your best, I brought Halloween string lights
and Halloween candy for the holy sisters
and pagan holiday or no,
we gave that room the feeling of a convent,
and I wrung my hands while you slept.

Home in midafternoon and anxious
rosaries in azure on the bedsheets
and flowers in brown, on green field
dormant.

Sleeplessness was penance,
and so was I absolved; thus some of that
absolution affixed itself to relics
and that rubber duck on the dashboard
I touched in the morning traffic.
It glowed to say
your spirit was with me.

And though I now can sleep at any hour,
I examine it all the same
for some of Christ’s blood, or his forgiveness,
hoping to find the signet ring of the Pope
or at least some of your halo
where I should expect
the Byzantine absence of it.

One, two, three, four...
The dream shakes you down to your core.
Eyes open, breath in breath out, jerky.
Panic attack, heart thumping, sweaty.
Reach out .. bottle, pills, water.
Feel the lorazepam flying through your veins.
It’s not the same, no not the same...

It takes a few minutes for the calming effect
to convince me it was just a nightmare.
The same dream I’ve had for two years.
It visits me regularly like an old friend, but not friendly.
I try to sleep, cloak myself with the dark of night
that blankets me like a layer of comfort, a soothing.
I exhale, feel my breath rush out, relieving my fright.
I imagine a creak on the stair, was it real ?
Panic rises again.
I’m alone.
He’s here !

If it weren’t for the drugs,
I'd scream until the windows shattered.

Wait...it's  just the cat.

Lively people and empty conversations.
In here it's so much colder.
Lorazepam and alcohol,
I'm drunk but at least bolder.
I've been looking into his brandy eyes,
feels like it's been so long.
Couple more sips and his black shirt,
now they are playing our song.
The room is now a chatter,
I can barely stand.
We talk about our fancy tea
with whiskey in our hands.
It's 3AM and whiskey kisses
also a lot of stories and lies.
Love songs only break your heart
so bid our blurry goodbye.

Yesterday my sister and I lay on the bed,
while I read to her my diary entries from 2010.
We laughed about my desperate bouts of affection for my crush that year,
the time I broke my right wrist, outdated song references and how everyday started with "Today is the worst."
Sitting with my friend and her brother, he asks me "Isn't PTSD the thing that happens to soldiers on war?" I nod to him and say,
"Yes but I am the soldier who cannot come home from my war, can only come home to it."
I don't like the taste of my tea that I spent fifteen minutes making,
but I am going to at least drink half of it.
Every time I hear a love song, it reminds me of my caretaker; She is the only one I truly loved.
For years after I shifted to the city she kept calling me, some answered, some left ringing next to my pillow.
She doesn't call anymore and I can't help but obsess over it.
I haven't been to the beach in a longtime and I feel like I am forgetting how it looks, or sounds.
I don't like that.
Early in 2016, my therapist tells my sister to hide all pills, toxic material and knives away from me.
A week after hiding everything, she forgets.
I have tried to start taking my medication several times but I always discontinue it,
my therapist thinks my attachment issues with people is showing up with the pills too.
I think I have two favorite colors; a fading green and light blue.
I remember I always wore black clothes when I was in school.
My father once screamed at me at the movie theater for wearing black again. I wonder why he did not say anything in the car.
The night after I overdosed on Lorazepam pills washed down with old coke, I cried in the morning because I was still here.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is the name of a song that I really relate to;
A song I have heard enough to hate, but cannot find the stop-button to.
Making constant eye contact makes my cheeks and ears, very warm.
Most of my nightmares are about my father or my caretaker, both are not nice to me in my dreams.
I have a hard time remembering roads, conversations or what month or year it is.
Today I read my diary entry from two days ago.
"Today is the worst." it said.
Funny.

Like a loaf loaded
with yet to bleeding blossom
lorazepam all fifty milligram
this what happens when you sack sam

Sick fan sycophant tell a man he can't
land a grand piano from a roof top
a belly flop on four legs makes sense
If not got a ***** top on the old mop

Intense chatter in the earlobe
oil dope in the fancy trench coat
take paper please simply note there's no hope
slick as slippery soap we got no back

This plane ten eleven years hijacked
a long way to find some actual senses
hit the train track practice bench pressing
Impact of the last note worth knowing

Easy bowling down loners alley
Instant as all striked out.