White Daisies

This stuffy asylum corridors

The air – has an undertone of bleach

The walls – magnolia; scrapped in places

The pictures on the walls – cheap benign prints of uplifting scenes

And then

A small window pane – the only portal for me to the outer world.

As the light falls on these walls, this bed, these hands of mine;

I am nobody, I have nothing to do with explosion

I have given my name, my day, and my clothes up to the nurses

And my history to the anesthetist

My body to the surgeons.

They prop my head between the pillows and the sheet cuff

Like an eye between two white lids that won’t shut.

Stupid poor these pupils of mine,

For it has to take everything of there in.

The nurses pass and pass, well they’re no trouble

They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps.

Every time. They look at me.

But all the nurses see is an empty shadow.

They don’t see the pain behind my eyes

Or the bruises on my legs, or the scars on my arms, wrist,

Hidden by long sleeves.

They don’t notice how I wobble when I walk

Because I haven’t eaten in almost a week

Or the way I slur my speech because I stayed up last night

And if I ever disappear, they will lie.

And they will say they noticed me.

They don’t ever speak a word or urge to ask if I am okay.

They bring me numbness in their bright needles

And then, they bring me sleep.

There I stare at my husband and child smiling out of the family photo.

Their smiles catch into my skin, like some sort of little smiling hooks.

I look out of my window

I notice the way the moon looks slightly dented

Like a piece has been stolen off

It reminds me of how my heart used to feel

Sometimes that’s how I feel

Somedays I feel everything at once

And other days, I feel nothing at all

And I don’t know what’s more worse?

Drowning beneath the waves,

Or dying from the thirst!

And there goes my soul orbiting a dark star for far too long

Caught in a deadly gravity of my wounded past.

I think nothing more.

Imagine nothing more.

I feel nothing more.

I bring a blade.

I cut my skin.

Yes.

But that isn’t important.

What matters is cut my soul

I lose down my spirit,

Right there-

Flesh by flesh

Fiber by fiber.

I see my soul.

Ruthlessly dehumanize her.

She was then of no importance.

She did not matter.

I cut her piece to piece

I almost kill her.

On the outside though;

She survived fine.

She felt happy, content, beautiful, even.

But that was not the case,

She was a liar.

She was dying.

My soul- was dying.

And as the blood dripped from her side,

Her soul slowly dripped with it;

Like a steady waterfall- of pain.

People did call me crazy

And will call me crazy

For they will never realize-

I had been through a battle,

A battle – of which no one could see the demons

A battle – that left me with scars.

Scars on my soul

Scars on my skin

Scars on the outside

Some are within.

Some have a story,

Some are unwritten

Some you can see

But most quite unseen.

Finally my soul leaves her body

Dresses itself with the same scars as the best attire now.

In a stunning dress dazzling golden

In virtue of glazing hellfire she assumes to will burn.

But there-

She wakes up.

In some other world.

She wakes up picking white petals of daisies-

Tangled in her hair.