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I wasn't brought in kicking and screaming, nor strapped to a gurney or shackled to a cop

there was nothing illegal stashed in any orifice when some cold hands frisked me at the barbed wire gate

I defied the laws of triage -- no drugs were found in my urine or my veins

I didn't jesus-ramble or tell them I was Napoleon or Courtney Love

In the first hour I was checked for life-threatening illness or communicable diseases, undressed, weighted, probed and fed, assigned a number

The doctors gave me mortar and pestel pills and held their collective breaths

were they waiting for me to twitch, blow a fuse, wail at the window, or dance a hora for them?

A hallucination would have been applauded

but I remained colorless and dormant as a doormat

They recorded all my sighs and every sneeze was sacred

when they learned I was a poet they insisted I write like a latter-day Sexton, then stole my poems and combed them for freudian slips, for some manic message in morse code

(defiant and clever I wrote well-balanced poems for their consumption and autographed them with an inverted smile)

I ate just enough to avoid an IV and too little to be listed compulsive

I was too healthy for the Quiet Room and too sick for the sidewalk

(the closet was the perfect venue, I curled up against a broomstick like a cat who is going to die)

The young boys liked me because I was blond and blase

I was a ragdoll in their arms

to myself I was amorphous, to them I had the shape of a siren,

they tried to mount me in the dayroom,

so I joined their schizophrenic orgy, and they chanted at my feet

At night I made a shield with the sheets, bunched up in a blanket

large men, strong as coffee, shined a flashlight in my face by the hour

they didn't care if I wet the bed, picked at my scabs, bloodied my lips or made love to myself

only that I was still there, breathing, not plotting my escape

I never saw any angels at midnight

I slept for months like a groundhog without a shadow

preferring the ridiculous grey of institution walls to the ominous eyes of daylight

A season tossed and turned while they waited for me to crash through the prism, to grow weak from the silence

...............and that's what I did..................

I tell this story to document the holy war I waged

I confess to anyone who will listen

but, especially, for those who recognize my face in their mirror

for them I tell my ward stories



The Mirror

By Darlene D. Knowings


She was the best friend I ever had,
becasue she didn't leave when things were bad.

Thoughout my life, she'd periodically appear
Whenever I was afraid, she took away the fear.

Together we laughed, told jokes, and even occasionally cried,
Whenever I went on an emotional rollercoaster, she too took the ride.

Sometimes I couldn't believe in her, when life's ways began to get rough.
But she'd always say together we'll stand, together we are still tough enough.

I owe her my life becasue without her I wouldn't be
She is the reflection in the mirror, THE REFLECTION IS ME...