Breach In Containment Protocol
Did I stammer, did I stutter,
I can banter, I can walk.
I am not afraid to talk.
Two steps to the left and one to the right.
I can dance on your lines all night.
The courtyard is in session.
Cigarettes are the only possession.
Shaking your leg to the nicotine beat.
That sweet yellow stain that strokes your brain.
Sanka decaf brew,
sludge and mud to chew.
three meals a day,
it’s better than the daily grind they make you play.
Have a rest, why don’t you stay.
Puzzles and chess boards on the table,
pawns prostrate at the nurses desk.
Might I have a urine cup,
I need a drink.
It’s just apple juice, meant to interplay.
A cider punch for the bland oatmeal and carton-poured eggs.
Communal television,
no news allowed to preview.
Wouldn’t want any outbursts.
Sudden realizations that we are all in fact doomed.
Close your eyes and change the channel,
flicker on the screen remote displayed on the wall panel,
the one that swings out and down.
When someone cannot calm down.
Panels drop like guillotines,
corridors carved into quiet scenes.
A folding maze for the ones who shake,
the room rearranged for containment’s sake.
A breach in the perimeter.
Alarm bells ring out.
Is it Jeffrey from room number two two three
or is the screaming only me?
Pacing the halls as if on a leash,
back and forth between the bathrooms
and the x-ray machines —
put on your best lead vest, it’s time for the snapshots.
Snapshots. The best dressed wins.
Parade around like the homecoming queen.
You made it this far, aren’t you just a scene.
A peach.
A blissfully unaware ballerina,
dancing on broken feet.
They drag you in by the chair,
pushing you like it was a pram.
No autonomy provided,
no guarantee of a hand.
I can stand on my two busted feet,
bones gripping the ground like I was planted from a seed.
I can walk free into the lion’s den again —
I become a digit, a number on the bill.
Monthly injections at a quarter to ten,
priced like salvation, sold as a cure for the will.
Crayons are gateways into a spell,
figuring out riddles and fragments of lore.
I had nothing left, not even my freedom —
but they never hear that, it’s such a bore.
Rolling their eyes as I hand over my pride.
It isn’t fair and it isn’t right.
But how do I fight a system built
on reorientation, not on repair or light.
I pick up my pen,
I give power to my presence.
I orate my disorder,
I burn their empty folder.
I close my file across their systems.
I don’t exist in their mainframe
or their locked little kitchens.
I healed my wounds with my own validation.
I discovered the truth —
I am more than just a tabulation.
The letters of my name spell out my life’s perdition.
I wear it the way you might wear your mittens —
it saves me from touching the elements of fire,
when I use it to counterbalance my desire.
I wield the pen the way a warrior wields his blade,
with honour and justice in every swing of the hilt.
I tilt the world to my perceptions,
make them see the weight of their transgressions.
I am transpired, and I am telecasted.
I am a broadcast
for the ones that never mattered.
I rise through the static,
and I speak for the shadows they never let in.
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