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SCHIZOPHRENIA

by D. James McKee



there is a beast hidden beneath my bed. while in dreams, i cower
between soft white sheets, his breath, laboured and foul, curdles
the warm milk on my stand.

he waits, a patient predator fawning on silence and shadow,
hugging obsequious corners where darkness and dust-
bunnies gather to grow.

the moan of a floorboard, a whispered foot-
fall and he coils, hoarding charcoal thoughts
like leather-bound eggs. with diamond-
edged reason and reptile cunning, he plots
my demise.

he scatters me like heady wine:
he steals my strength and blurs my mind.

his two-tyned tongue makes meat of innocence, tracing faults
in yieldless, prophylactic, lines: a scarred and faithless mar-
riage of space and time.

his indelible venom pools in steaming indigo: injection
sites for the misshapen sanguine faces racing madly beneath
my pale skin, making for the pounding red path, chamber
of the serpentine drum.

with acid-balm lips lapping hungrily at my unguarded
throat, he sets my face in a pillow of stone and scales
the peaks: a mailed curtain draped from my two-post
sleep.

surcease:

so small, I curl my spine,
face pressed to knee:
searching for light in an end-
less night, seeking the solace
of heaven, slamming the door
in the side of my head, to silence
the voices that follow.

through the transparent sides of their pharma-fed ovipositer,
the pills glisten: milky gems, tepid and bitter and curdled,
wholesomeness expired somewhere in the dark, before
the cold bland rays of dawn.

tonight, I sleep with the blue angel,
who soothes
to silence both the beast and me.


03/23/2010

Author's Note: As Alice Cooper once said: "Welcome to my nightmare..."

Posted on 03/23/2010
Copyright © 2024 D. James McKee

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by George Hoerner on 03/23/10 at 01:00 PM

Wow, that is quite write James. The first thing that came to my mind was an acid trip but I really can't say that as I've never been on one. I've known at least two schizophrenics and didn't know either of them to write that well.

Posted by Joan Serratelli on 03/23/10 at 03:17 PM

I agree- this is great. You said alot. Mental ilness is horrid; but it is a disease.I'm glad you realize that and you are able to own up to it. I think that we are all human. We ALL have problems- you are very couragous for sharing this- thank you.

Posted by Sandy M. Humphrey on 03/23/10 at 09:50 PM

Vivid and real, and the kicker is to feel this much it seems you would have to prolong the meds enough to let the words and images flow and then bring on the lithium or whatever calms the nightmares...almost dancing with the demon type feel to this but oh so very real. smh

Posted by Charlotte Smith on 03/24/10 at 05:09 AM

And this is why people can't be diagnosed with mental disorders until they're of age.

Posted by Elizabeth Jill on 03/27/10 at 12:47 PM

What a painful illness this is. You describe it so well.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 04/01/10 at 01:06 AM

Very scary made more real by your most excellent ability at descriptions, images, emotions. Thank you.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 11/12/10 at 03:49 PM

Congrats on POTD!

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