Visiting Hours at the Psych Ward

I wonder if she realizes where she is
while the syringe smacks a blackberry bruise
on her skin. Looking at the red second hand
as if casting a spell on time, her eyes become
the clock; the one’s you’d see in a classroom.
She fidgets a little under her restraints, clinging
the sanitary sheets of paper into balls of snow.

I wonder what she is thinking as she mumbles
a bubble of words below her tongue. She
must have had a bullet-sharp thought
and needed to blow her mind apart
as she has blunt trauma to the head.
Her hair bleeds of crimson trees all blanketing
the bed like scarlet branches in Autumn.

I wonder what she sees; white walls cracked
with chips of black underneath, like the scales
of a dragon. The ice cube trays on the ceiling
melts the room with a cooling effect causes
us to have fog emanate from our breath.
I wonder if she feels my flaming thoughts
as I surround her in my broken skin.


Published in Clark Street Review

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