Cover Photo: picture mine
picture mine

on getting sick in the hospital and other mayhem

TW:  psych hospitals/talk of suicide

that time in the hospital was the second time in the hospital and we smoked cigarettes all day while also playing cards all day and  cracking jokes all day and i thought i'm never going home and when the doctor said (not nicely) why don't you go home i said i 'm staying. that time in the hospital we were eager to get up and sit in the common room smoking cigarettes playing cards and cracking jokes. that time in the hospital we went on walks into westwood with plastic bracelets on our wrists and it was cold and me and mike brought up the rear and felt giddy with freedom. that time in the hospital the psychologist did her sessions on the pay phone i kid you not while hillary and me and the rest of us kept everyone quiet so her patients wouldn't know. that time in the hospital the aerobic instructor failed to hang herself on the exercise bars cuz she kept her equipment spic n span and it came loose. that time in the hospital the woman arrived in tears late at night and the husband was there too and we talked to her and told her she was safe and she left the next morning anyway. that time in the hospital hector told me you are a dumbfuck and my english was what it was and i had never learned dumbfuck so i took the compliment cuz hector liked me a lot except maybe after all no. that time in the hospital was my last time in the hospital smoking cigarettes and the next time only six months later we had to go on the roof and i smoked so much i got dizzy and that is why

that time in the hospital was the last time i was young because six months later i was old and i blame the roof and also america but above all i blame the grown ups who hurt the child and the child's body decided that if the child refused to listen to nightmares daymares and suicide the child would listen to a broken body which is why

six months later i started being old and then i was old for a very long time and finally i was so old i lay on my bed and smoked facebook twitter the huff  post and no one knows how old i am cuz i don't tell them but i know and that's how old i am, which is very old, which is why

i see an analyst who is old and young like me and we play cards crack jokes associate dissociate dismember debone decalcify but the cigarettes, the cigarettes i left them back on the roof of the six-months-later hospital and don't miss them a bit cuz the people had all changed and it was no longer fun and what's the point of a hospital if not to make you sicker while you squeeze fun and laughter  from an all-around bad scene and then think back on the people and know a good half of them are dead. 


i am a person who tries.