Tag: mental illness

Muriel Zeller

Self, Time and External Circumstances

   1.

   The disconnected self cut
   the filaments
   that held up my life.

          You are sick–very, very sick

   The hospital psychiatrist asked
   a question.  I answered correctly,
   "Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey
   Oswald on TV.“

          You use your intelligence in negative ways

   I have lied in each
   different life, covering
   tracks of the last.

          I saw you when you were someone else

   I laughed
   when I told the story:
   my father held a gun
   on my brother.

          Your laughter is inappropriate

   I took the opiates
   as prescribed and wanted
   less and less  
   to be flesh.

          You may refuse your medication at any time

   I made lists
   of what I wanted  
   to recall.

          You could benefit from electroconvulsive shock therapy

   My body refused to release
   urine.  I became sick:
   searing ache and longing
   to take away the pain.

          Your past is the reason you can’t urinate

   She arrived in a black dress,
   one of a long line
   of therapists.  She began

          You don’t like black, do you?

   as I watched light stipple
   her dress through the iron
   mesh on the windows.

          Tell me about the abuse

   In a corner of night,
   I hunched and hunched
   to make myself small,
   invisible.

          Where are you?

   2.

   I passed each day,
   clutching a pillow
   rocking back and forth
   as gently as I would
   on Charon’s river.

          Tell me, then, what do your tears think?

   I paced the halls, hid
   in my closet, made a collage.
   The attendants cooed.
   I smiled at them with rage.

          This is very complex

   I threw a strike.
   "The bowling pins are my family,”
   I said.  The other patients  
   cheered.  I did it again,
   and the chaperones grew uneasy.

          I think its time to leave

   I was released from the hospital
   after a month–just
   when my insurance ran out.

          Reconnect with your therapist on the outside

   I am scary.  I scare myself.
   I scare my outside therapist.
   She doesn’t want me anymore.

          Once, I thought you were going to attack me

   At home, I have my own riot.
   I scream in the shower.
   The walls bruise my body.
   My head pounds back.

          I will make arrangements for you to see someone else

   The telephone can change
   shape.  It will lie to you.
   My memory reeked
   of the black dress.

          She won’t talk to you unless you make the call

   I moved on to the next
   recommended therapist
   with my own psychotic symmetry.

          I’m counseling a group of sex offenders next

   3.

   I got pregnant.
   My husband’s form
   fathered fetal tissue–
   I was too old.

          You cannot abort the baby

   After-birth I mothered my daughter:
   bathed, dressed, nursed and loved,
   all the while knowing nothingness
   waited for me in a clutch of medication.

          We have a pact.  You won’t kill yourself.

   Cross my heart
   and hope to die.

          What kind of pills, how many?

   The doctor didn’t hide
   his contempt as he guided  
   a tube down my throat.

          Where is her underwear?

   After a day,
   angry and sullen, my husband
   took me back home.
   I had to nurse the baby.

          What do you think you were doing?

   The baby bit down hard
   on my nipple with her tiny teeth,
   punishing me
   for risking her life.