The Moor

Dead-eyed tinged neurosis red – He laid stretched out in the ward again, plucked ripe from a branch of psychosis at three a.m – He was marching around in manic state when they picked him up, with grandiose delusions on his mind, wielding a blade after a sleepless week or a month perhaps? There in the rain, lapping at the puddle of narcissism.

They carted the patient away in yellow ambulance at four a.m, giving him a shot: 50mg of Valium and 30mg of Olanzapine to sooth his screaming skull, ironing out his flayed nerves, as he lies there embraced in a drug induced straitjacket with a silly smile on his face, his mind untangling, muscles lax as he watches the grey coats come and go.

All cut up you wouldn’t believe he looked away when they pricked him with a little needle, but he did. Left alone there listening to each machine working here and there, shuffling about there voices dim between the walls, just whispers - lies or no lies, they dissipate fizz away on his tongue for a calm little moment at six a.m.

The following afternoon his voices had vanished, a deadening depression had left in its wake, standing there head down weeping, waiting in line for lunch - madness is depressing, the loony bin long since sold out.

The nights are long and quite to - muttering to yourself head down waiting in line for pills to tame they claim: mania – melancholic manic depression - extreme elation - paranoid psychosis - obsessive compulsive personality disorder etc. Lithium, Venlafaxine, Depacote anticonvulsives etc.

I'm given a Zopiclone sometimes at night if I'm good.

As the weeks pass in twists of locks and tears, bed sheets are changed and scripts exchanged as you fill out your forms and place your thoughts in a cellophane bag to conform for Friday's release. The stays are getting shorter to, now that's progress for you! You live to fight another day, and other clichés.

Sanity comes in small doses.