Mental institution

Painted ceilings - blue like the lips of the drowned woman
who comes to me in my dreams
which are ceremonial nightmares
from which no therapist could heal me;
Wallpapers with little orange flowers and
symmetrical purple circles, plus the sterile smell
of a morgue, remind me of a mental institution.
Don't worry gentlemen - I'm not yet in it,
but it, however, has always been in me.
It occupied my mind with the idiotism
of it's filthy traumas and it defined my identity
with it's loud, ghostly, gore night cries.
Constantly living with the sound of their frail tears
dropping slowly on the stiff cement floor,
actually seeing these little water drops
in the eyes of the sick and the disturbed -
it made me jealous 'til the bones,
for my two "viewers of the world" can not cry anymore.
You see, my obeying body closed down
the water supply.
Decided not to be a slave to the emotions -
thought they ruled yesterday, not tonight.
But the past always haunts the present,
sucking out our blood - not just with a needle,
but with a fat, fat tube.
My tube's so full and theirs so empty,
'cuz some have amnesia and others are brain dead;
Sit on a chair and beat their heads with a spoon,
pretend to be a dolly, pretend to be deaf,
pretend to be a spy, play 'the living' with each other.
And who of us dares to live that way?
Who is so brave not to commit suicide on the 1st day?
No, I'm not in it, gentlemen,
though it, however, has always been in me...




Poetry by Francesca Georgia Luca
Read 821 times
Written on 2006-12-15 at 20:10

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Ngoc Nguyen The PoetBay support member heart!
Great last two lines...very profound and memorable!
2018-05-25


Rob Graber
We're not all in it, but it's in all of us--to some extent; or so I like to think. Fine job.
2006-12-16