1. How Did You Get Here?
Each interview is different.
Everyone wants to help you,
But everyone brings their own
Individual
Blend of background and beliefs,
Fears and personality
To the questions that they ask.
There are those who want to laugh
And like to see you laugh, too.
There are the suspicious ones
Who interrogate for lies,
The soft ones who get teary,
And my favorite, the shepherds
Who want you back in the fold.
There's the one who chides
You for invoking magic,
Then says, "This was meant to be."
2. Workbook
Alone with the evidence-
Based "Wellness Recovery
Action Plan" and forbidden
Access to the internet,
I stared at the words "wellness"
And "well" and wished I recalled
Their full etymology.
Every page of the workbook
Assumed I knew what "well" was.
Other words, words like "trigger"
And "toolbox" and "action plan"
Were glossed, but "wellness"
And "well" never were.
Before I tell when I'm not
Feeling well, or what I'm like
When I'm feeling well,
I'd like to know what I meant.
Good? Cheerful? Benevolent?
Healthy? Contented?
Normal? Competent?
Full of clear water
With a bucket to fetch it?
Just ok? I'm well, thank you?
I thought, I feel well
When, well, I don't feel like hell,
When I'm safely in my shell,
No one knocking, can't you tell?
3. A Nature Poem
What do you think of
In a room without reading
Or viewing materials,
A beige room without a clock
Or a window or a soul?
The chair is comfortable,
The air uniformly warm.
There's no annoying music,
No music of any kind,
No television noises.
Only the printer behind
The nurses' desk hums.
How could you possibly hurt?
I'm going to write a haiku.
4. Lamp Sunrise
A night in a recliner
After seven interviews,
No windows in sight,
Ended with a light
Switched on overhead
By the newest therapist
Arrived for her morning shift.
I'm getting better
At writing with bendy pens
Too soft for self harm.
I miss my daughter--
I miss my freedom--
(The limitations
Of my flesh, I get to keep.
My failures, I get to keep.)
There's nothing to read.
There's food on the way,
Then more interviews.
It's pleasant in a strange way.
But it's not the dawn highway
Where I could pretend
This was my world in the end.
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