Part 1
in remembrance -
This bed has not always been my fortress.
My cavern, my safety, my shackles.
This bed used to be reality. My own reality used to be something unlike the hardened buckles that cut off my circulation, it used to be far different than the prickling numbness that took over swollen fingertips, the light blue hint of decaying flesh. I don’t always remember it in pictures and frames. Most of the time it comes down upon me like a rush of water. The inward wave, salty. It consumes me, flushes into every orifice, every pore of me. That is what my memories are like.
Flashes of a summer sun.
Lightning in the dark of night.
The tickle of a fleeting breeze.
My life had once been this: school, a girlfriend, a family, maybe a dog, and white picket fences. Sometimes there was pie. My life had become a less than memorable American dream stereotype. Fuck. I recluse myself from these memories. I am shutting down. Everything is shutting down. You are shutting me down. Thrashing, thrashing, thrashing, settle. Repeat. Are my wrists bleeding? Where is the rest of my body? Is this living? Help. Help. Help.
S.O.S.
Maybe if I build a fire, the airplanes will be able to see the smoke.
in present -
The thin nurse is visible again. I remember her, every so often. She is beautiful. I think of what beauty is to me. Is this beauty? The way she so desperately fondles that needle with such a burning hatred for me, that is beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is superficial. She is thin, and beautiful. Her eyes taunt me so beautifully, and I retract from her in the most instinctual way. My body shies away from memories I cannot obtain.
Pathetic.
She says my name. Ezekiel. Zeek. I like that better. Call me Zeek. Where is my tongue? Where are my manners? Hello, my name is Ezekiel. Please call me Zeek. My pupils dilate at the thought of the needle, at the thought of not being able to introduce myself to it. Zeek, can’t you hear me? I feel as though I can pinpoint the single air bubble that escapes upwards, it diminishes near the top and my thoughts cumulate into a disgruntled groan. It is hell in liquid form. The memory of how it feels penetrating my skin is much like the feeling of being burned by dry ice. It is ironic in nature, merely for the fact that ice is cold; however, dry ice is so cold that it burns. The medicine that I refuse to take in pill form is much more significant when it is like this and I do not like how it parades about, clear like water, how fake it all seems.
Death.
Dying.
Dead.
If that needle touches me I am going to die.
“Fuck”
That slipped out.
“Fuck. Me.”
Only if you want.
“No.”
Is this considered rape now?
dreaming –
We don’t wake up just yet. I know this for fact, somewhere in the parts of my mind that you aren’t controlling I know that we are in a fine line of desperation. The threads of reality and imagination have spun us into a wad of less than living flesh. My body is your canvas, and I am just the nagging appendage that you have yet to hack off. One day I know that you may have the chance to be rid of me, and when that day comes I know that I will be gone for good. It is scary, but in my thirty years of being alive I have come to grips with this thrilling fact.
In my dreams we are separate. You are not interested in the petty interworking of me. My synapses are free to make connections all over, my brain pulses with so much information that my dreams are their own reality. I dream of the beach. I dream of my parents. I dream of a childhood and freedom that was not always conformed by the tantalizing, bony finger tips of you. I used to be somebody, and I guess that makes me sad. In my dreams I am able to recall entire years of my life, untouched pauses of time that I store just out of your reach. I do not know if this matters to you. These snippets of my lifetime are the only parts that help me to remain.
I am the fly caught in the web. Stuck to things beyond my knowledge, rigid with the idea that one day I am going to have the life, quite literally, sucked out of my body.
to recap the day -
My morning episode landed me back inside of my room, which you know, and I slept for a good part of the day with no plausible solution. They force fed me the medication, which I haven’t been taking, by way of needle. It did not leave a mark. My wrists are cusped between leather bondages. They look like belts rung into the tightest loop around bruised appendages. Some of that is mine. Some of it is something else. Most of it I don’t remember. They restrain
me. Us. Together we are not allowed to move freely. The medicine they give me makes things feel light, translucent. Clear: like we are suddenly washed of our impurities and turned new again; reborn by way of anti-psychotics, if only for a few hours. I do not always like my medicine. I do not always take it. When I don’t things get very bad, very strange and disturbing. This is how I am, this is how you are.
“Paint for me.” Doctor T. says. He is surly, and when he speaks I can hear your laughter at the way his jowls shiver beneath the weight of his words.
“Paint what?” My own voice always seems so distant.
“Paint whatever you see in your mind.”
Thus, you enlighten me and we paint a turtle carcass. It is festering, it has some sort of pox all over it and on top of the turtle there is a naked cat. The naked cat has a rather large, impending erection coming out of its forehead. Doctor T. does not say anything. We reflect on this work and I know you are pleased, and I am rather indifferent. I was simply told to paint what I see.
in the light –
When we are not in our room we are allowed into the common area. This hospital is its own standing mental facility for those who cannot control themselves. Lunatics, insane, mental, batty, bizarre, and my personal favorite: psychotic. We are not all the same, but we are treated much like we are. When you are normal you think of these places with such disheartening pity. Those poor people, what a horrible existence. When you are in one of these places you don’t think much of anything. Besides being constantly doped up on drugs they are sure to place you into therapies and group activities. Exercising outside, surrounded by state of the art chain link fences, pulsing with however many watts of electricity and just for extra measure – perfected coils of barbed wire on top.
You and I both know that they added that only last year. The barbed wire. It just so happened that an older man, his name was Frank or Henry or something that reflected how monotonous his real life must’ve been, went on a manic episode after refusing to take his medicine for a week. In the end of it all he punctured a basketball, removed all of his clothing and climbed the fence naked. It was quite a show, and they had to wrangle him out of someone’s driveway about two miles away. They got a lot of shit for that one.
This reminds me that I haven’t seen him since that happened.
Which brings me to my point: You are in here because you are a threat to yourself and those around you. How unfair of you to exist, so deformed and mentally incapable. You do not get to feed your mental instability. Instead you have to sign up for jazz club, and the knitting circle. Play poker with pretzels, play friendly board games that do not stir up anger. Watch the news; watch the blank screen when the news has something much too graphic for you to think about.
“If you’re a good boy and eat all of your dinner then you can have ice cream,” my mother used to say this.
The nurses still do.
in the dark –
I do not like the dark, but you seem to thrive in it. When I am alone, when the other guests have settled, their prescriptions blooming in their head, you come to me so desperately.
to my decaying brain –
I like the way my fingers tap against the bed frame as I wait for you. The way my skin feels so smooth against the bronzed metal, rounded balls that keep it together. They keep me together; me, you, us. It is like a sickness, I wish for the cool touch of it to trickle down my body. I can see it, and I know you can see it too. You are the third eye, pink and oozing. My hazardous, contagious third eye. I wonder what you like some times. You show me bad things, and not so many good things. Are you bad? Are we bad? I wonder how we ended up here, but I do not question you. The doctor said that it happens like that.
Schi
Schizo
Schi
Schizophrenia
He said that it is an imbalance. Chemical instability. He says that you’re the problem. I wonder if he’s right. Mostly at night when I can’t sleep, when my back is so rigid that I can do nothing but stare straight up into the white nothingness of the ceiling. All of the other patients can be heard screaming. Wailing, and moaning into the absence of noise. I cannot scream. You do not allow me such luxuries. Sometimes I am thankful for my noiselessness. I wonder what words taste like, not tainted by the foulness of my deficiency. Our deficiency - together we are deficient. My doctor explains this to me.
Lack of:
-Emotional sensitivity.
-Desire to have company.
-Thoughtfulness.
-Child-like thought processing.
Overwhelming:
-Anxiety.
-Depression.
-Thoughts of suicide.
-Hallucinations.
That’s how they prefer to explain things. Maybe listing them, as if the bullets and the stunted line growth will help me understand. They need me to understand, mostly so I can control you. They tell me I need to persuade you, overpower you and understand you. You and I are not in complete harmony, balanced. Our Feng Shui needs some chemical reformation. However, you know that I know these things and it has become extremely inhibiting towards me. I dislike that very much about you.
a detailed history –
According to my medical chart, which is also in list format, I entered this room when I reached the age of twenty-eight. It didn’t happen all at once, but over time. It was like an infection spreading over me. The doctors did not know what you were at first, but instead reclined to the notion that I’d turn out ok. The depression – there’s a pill for that. The anxiety – there’s a pill for that. The insomnia – here’s a pill for that. At our lowest point, without knowing we had the disease, we were on ten different medications. None of which would correct what was wrong. It was only until they found it in my heritage. My family tree, missing branches and limbs, decaying without notion.
They would say, “Your grandfather had these symptoms,” not even a flicker of emotion hurdled over their faces, “they may not have known it then, but these things change over time.”
I remember this day because I was all there. I knew what they were talking about. What I mean by being all there is that I knew that I was in control, and not you. I was the one responding, I was the one watching, I could feel the pounding in my chest which signaled the onslaught of anxiety that allowed you to take over after I received this information. Our disease is genetic, or so they think. They do not know much of it, just that I have displayed symptomatic nuances since I was a boy. Funny, no one ever told me this. You never told me this either, you’re much more of the strong, silent type. I find it rather endearing.
We have been in this institution for 24 months.
104 weeks.
730 days.
a new day -
It is now day seven hundred and thirty-one. Not that anyone is counting. You might be counting, but I am never sure. Sometimes I can read you like a book, and you allow me to thumb through your pages. For the majority we are not that open with one another, we are much like oil and water. You are always my surface, and I cower beneath you haphazardly. I do not question this. Instead, I follow instinctively into the yard. Henry or Frank, or whatever his name was isn’t here again. I wonder of his existence for less than ten seconds. We do not socialize, we do not exercise, we do nothing. We slide over to the tree. Our tree. You like to call it your tree, but I feel we have many fond memories beneath this tree. Your tree. We are beneath your tree, the sun is squarely set in the sky. It is humid, the horrid musk of mother nature hazes over us. You are displeased, and I can feel myself feeling rather enamored.
Not in love, maybe not even amused. I feel something, though. The wind changes, and I suck in a deep breath.
life of an island inhabitant -
The institution is an island. At least, for now, picture this building as an island. It is square in nature, with dormitories and living spaces. OK, just envision a prison on an island. The institution is a prison on an island. Got it, check. It is gray, and it has windows with bars on it. There are trees, but they are gnarled and unfriendly. There is grass, soil, sand. There is no barbed wire, no electric fence. However, there may be a naked man puncturing basketballs every so often. As all islands are surrounded by water, picture the depths of murky, undrinkable salt water all around you - filled to the brim with things that want to eat you.
You can roam the island supervised. If you threaten the island in anyway you are put into a cave. Your cave is cold, and the only thing you do in your cave is sleep. Forced sleep that you can’t question under any circumstance. The only way to leave the island is to swim. However, you don’t know how to swim. You only know how to dream about swimming, maybe even dream about how you would turn swimming down if you were ever asked to swim. If you can swim then you can also get eaten. Everything wants to eat you alive, you are a psychotic, carbon based morsel. You don’t know how to swim, and even if you did know how to swim you would find it necessary to avoid swimming at all costs. What you need is a rescue party. How does one obtain a rescue party? You are on an island, there are many trees. They are gnarled and unfriendly, but somehow you find the good within them. At a certain point, as your fingers run over their disturbed bark, they find the good within you too.
Once this connection is made, it cannot be broken.
into the fire -
If you make other connections between elements you can make things. You can be a producer of things, and you think for me: how self sufficient you are, I am so proud of you. As my fingers work over the small branches, the small bush weeds and dead blades of grass I am only focused on pleasing you. Praise me, tell me I’m pretty. Perfectly round beads of sweat have formed at my temples. My heart beat has become a thunderous roar within me, I am anxious and you know this. You don’t stop me. I don’t want to stop.
Sink or Swim.
What do I choose? What do I do? What do we do? You give me hints, and I follow without a word. To the outside world I am the shadow, I am the fleeting moment. No one notices the magnifying glass. How foolish, don’t you agree? A mental institution with magnifying glasses. Someone could see something at a disturbingly large format and go into an episode. How dangerous! What I am doing is not harmful. Capturing the light beneath our tree, it trickles so beautifully in between branches and leaves, how am I to resist. It funnels, it dilates onto my pile of picked over lumber and weeds. It catches easily. You dance in the flames, and my arm has moved beyond me and into it and I do not feel burning. My skin is slowly melting off, but I do not feel burning.
Maybe if I build a fire, the airplanes will be able to see the smoke.
S.O.S
Help. Thrash, thrash, thrash, settle.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Subduing psychotic patients List:
(please follow all steps IN ORDER)
- Restrain.
- Subdue.
- Force anti - psychotics.
- Remove harmful object.
- Treat flesh wounds.
- Return to bed.
- Continue medication.
- Repeat.
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