CONTENT WARING: mental health, incarceration

 

 

BUT DON’T CALL IT MASKING TAPE

 

right up front for the brutal truth

there’s only one difference between prison

and the psych ward

and it’s the cafeteria offerings

the slunking whispers are the same

the blank bright hallways and gleaming fixtures

dinginess and long hallway flickering lights

just enough to gaslight an average man

so she said there’s a strict no cuddling policy

and I said honey I get it I’m crazy not stupid

 

here we are for your horrified amusement

the black-eyed children of the new millennia

we’ll consume your crime scene tape

wailing another older kind of siren

where instead of either soulless cell

I imagine that brightness is the seaside

where I’ll wake up next to you

on another cloud deeper in double digits

where I want to hear every passing thought

behind your eyes and your reserving smirk

 

so I pretend with the rain that I’m hearing sand and waves

imagine you wrap your arms around me and the color returns

and I’m left with no desire for anything

except to be here, to just be still, and listen