Ward Stories - Summer 2013

Ward Stories

A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor

It is my pleasure to present the poems of Sarah and Gil. Sarah has been very eager to get published by City Voices and sent us many an encouraging email. She has written many fine poems but alas we only have room for one. Gil's poem highlights his experiences in a psych hospital where they sent him for treatment of his drug addiction.

Autobiography

By Sarah

I’ve lived my life on an island

A round one, green and plush

Where my white feet shift all the white sand

And the salt makes my pale face flush

I sing with the island fairies

And make walls of tiny stones

And pretend that the clouds make me merry

And pretend that I'm not alone

Every now and then someone will float past

On their way to some far-off place

And I wave as the current sweeps by fast

While I memorize each smiling face

But my stone walls have started to totter

And the clouds are falling down

Still I dare not go out in the water

For then surely I will drown

Bughouse Birthday

By Gil

Days before I turned 24,

I told my family doctor

I had a heroin habit

and blinking like a mosquito landed

in his eye, he sent me to Fairfield Hills

State Hospital.

There was no group therapy,

no individual sessions,

no psycho-education,

no 12-step programs.

The attendants communicated

with grunts and hand gestures

behind shatter-proof glass.

When I complained of withdrawal symptoms,

the nurse said junkies

have a low threshold for pain.

A patient who memorized

Edgar Allen Poe

kept me up nights ranting:

“Ghastly grin and ancient raven

wandering from the Nightly shore…”

Another, called me paesan’

and said a Mafia hit team

was out gunning for him,

smashing the TV against a wall,

inches above my head.

My roomies boasted

how they played the skull doctors

by faking psychiatric problems

to avoid jail time

fantasizing out loud how much

dope they were going to shoot

the minute they hit the streets.

When I was discharged,

they gave me the phone numbers

to their connections.

Sobered by my hospital stay,

I stuck to wine coolers and reefer

for three months.