psychosis came softly a nurse with a needle hidden in her palm i signed the intake papers with a trembling hand listed my medications...lovers who left too soon zoloft 100mg abilify at night to make the monsters manageable trazodone for sleep i never quite fall into the psychiatrist said "you're high-functioning" as if that made the voices less cruel as if i should thank my serotonin for trying when it never showed up to work ...again i walk the sterile halls of my own mind each room labeled neatly PTSD...in the closet bipolar ii...on the windowsill manic and watching anxiety...pacing by the exit sign the exit sign that leads >>>nowhere<<< i dissociate mid-conversation the world blurs like a hospital tv on low volume everyone's lips move but all i hear is "you are a burden ...a liability ...a risk" i've worn 5150 like a second skin voluntary, they called it with two guards and no shoelaces my reflection watched me pace the psych ward tiles whispering compliance is recovery compliance is survival but survival is not the same as living every day i make a safety plan counting crisis lines instead of sheep tracking my triggers like a hunter...hunting himself dbt worksheets stacked like tombstones in the drawer with my old journals there's no cure just a quiet truce with this brain i inherited a neurochemical ceasefire that might hold until morning ...or not
