Did you finish high school, a male hospital attendant asks late at night. It’s a question I can answer after several hours of quizzing by social workers with regard to my mental health. Yes, I say. He looks disappointed. A nurse guides me to a room. In the bathroom, a pile of wet towels, in the window curtains are half-on, half-off the rod. Strip, she says, holding a chart to document my scars and tattoos. It is to monitor any cutting or other bad behavior. My roommate is talking, tells me she’s a hooker on Van Buren Street, just down the block. She talks all night and so do I, but it’s parallel, so we do not jibe. I tell her about my suicide attempt, how I would do it again. Huge cockroaches stroll the floor. This dump’s the only psych hospital my insurance will cover. I tell her I’m bipolar with major depressive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and a touch of dissociative identity disorder. She just talks about her career choice. At breakfast fifteen people on the ward eat until a man flips a table, screaming. Two burly aides take him away. In group therapy, a social worker attempts discussion, but patients wander in and out, disrupting conversation. Most are street people, off their meds, waiting to be processed for the state’s strict medical program. Later, I’m directed to a group with eight patients. My hospital shrink has urged me to speak, to talk about my problems. My father had sex with me from the time I was a baby until I was a teenager. And I’m a writer who cannot write anymore. The pain is too deep, I say. The new therapist brightly says Let’s give some feedback. The small room is silent. Later the shrink tells me: You need ECT. It works for artists. But he pauses. It probably won’t work with a writer. You’ll always know something is wrong, something is missing. So no-go in this unbearable ward where the air conditioning has gone out. Huge industrial fans are provided, hot air blowing deep in Phoenix’s 110 degree summer. It’s tough to breathe. The doc gives me a fistful of prescriptions: Wellbutrin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, and Ambien. A pocket of nothing. I don’t know it yet, but this is the first of over fifteen hospitalizations, ranging from five days duration to thirty-one days. I’ll miss Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and more, trapped in a lousy hospital somewhere, including this one. I want out. On the way home, I tell my husband I need a soda from 7-Eleven. All the stories I’ve heard of danger, mishaps, depression, and suicide make me sad. I can’t help but think of patients. I’m safe in the car, doors locked. Strangely distant, I watch as two men sneak around the building, then race to the doors, grab cartons of Budweiser piled in stacks on display. They race away. All I want is my diet drink. Nothing surprises me anymore.

Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.