Tag: poem

A small, wilted plant is perched on the charcoal countertop of a cramped studio apartment kitchen. From the confines of my hospital mattress, I will it to mend, sending mind waves to my old flat. When a soul breaks, does it splinter delicately like sea glass dropped on the surface of bronzed beach shore sands? Or does it split neatly into two chunks like a thick ivory porcelain platter meeting hardwood plank? Every single morning, I swallow my pills, and every single evening, I do the same. The nurses say it’s too soon to celebrate discharge day. So, we bleed into one another like the months on the wall calendar, like wet ink on damp notebook paper. Bleed like the wrists of my roommate patched up, stitched up, wrapped up in gauze. We float down psych unit hallways like misfit ghosts: professors, musicians, painters, restaurant owners, and radio personalities – shuffling in loose gowns from one scheduled group therapy session to some other, patiently commanding our psyches to convalesce. Every morning, sunlight seeps through frosted security windows with grated metal covers, gunmetal crosshatched over glass dense and sharp and clouded as icebergs floating across the Arctic. The wind whispers words that tell stories of freedom and peace and home – stories that patients like us will never profoundly know.