CSNY
I told Otis, "Wake me up if you want."
I found myself with 4 limbs strapped to a steel bed and a siren escort.
Wake up to the home girls discussing the best pizza.
So they strip search me, take all my girly tools to the ‘sharps room’.How do you kill yourself with an eyelash curler?
They throw me some flip-flops.
They stick me in the day room. I learn to say yes mam’, armed with my journal and my 2B pencil.
I turn on my artist eyes.
I’ve been here before. I visited Ruth in a place like this. I am exactly her age when she died.
No sweat, mom. I’ll take over from here.
A girl sat in a wheel chair wearing a football helmet, lookin’ at nothing.
Fondly known as a headbanger. Half her head's shaved. Someone said shock treatments.
I didn’t know they did that shit anymore.
One guy brought me a picture of his dead baby to draw and they all lined up after that.
Junkies, bipolars, schizos’, counselors, nurses, even some doctors, asked for their portraits.
Josef was bald so I drew him with hair. The junkie-twins nodded out before I could give them a chin line.
I shack with a Russian heroin addict. She’s playin’ the game, here to gain a few pounds and get away from her pimp.
It feels homey here, reminds me of Wellesley.
Garcia lifts up his hands and prays to God as we wait in the cafeteria line.
He talks to the Big Guy on his mental cellphone. I joke to the girls “I thought cell phones weren’t allowed?”.
My rocker friend, Charlie, takes bread, sugar and juice from the day room and starts a batch of hootch in his bottom bureau drawer.
I hang with an anorexic, a cutter and a telephone worker whose depressed. We tell the deepest secrets and watch each other’s back and call foul when we shift blame. We make plans for the outside but know we’ll never see each other again.
We get one call a day. A girl who burned her house down ripped the receiver off the wall.
She gets shipped to the other side. We peek through wired windows to Catatonia.
I jump through all the hoops and more. I’m staff favorite.
Got outta there in 5 days.
Short version:
It’s time to write the book.
What a novel idea.
I found myself with 4 limbs strapped to a steel bed and a siren escort.
Wake up to the home girls discussing the best pizza.
So they strip search me, take all my girly tools to the ‘sharps room’.How do you kill yourself with an eyelash curler?
They throw me some flip-flops.
They stick me in the day room. I learn to say yes mam’, armed with my journal and my 2B pencil.
I turn on my artist eyes.
I’ve been here before. I visited Ruth in a place like this. I am exactly her age when she died.
No sweat, mom. I’ll take over from here.
A girl sat in a wheel chair wearing a football helmet, lookin’ at nothing.
Fondly known as a headbanger. Half her head's shaved. Someone said shock treatments.
I didn’t know they did that shit anymore.
One guy brought me a picture of his dead baby to draw and they all lined up after that.
Junkies, bipolars, schizos’, counselors, nurses, even some doctors, asked for their portraits.
Josef was bald so I drew him with hair. The junkie-twins nodded out before I could give them a chin line.
I shack with a Russian heroin addict. She’s playin’ the game, here to gain a few pounds and get away from her pimp.
It feels homey here, reminds me of Wellesley.
Garcia lifts up his hands and prays to God as we wait in the cafeteria line.
He talks to the Big Guy on his mental cellphone. I joke to the girls “I thought cell phones weren’t allowed?”.
My rocker friend, Charlie, takes bread, sugar and juice from the day room and starts a batch of hootch in his bottom bureau drawer.
I hang with an anorexic, a cutter and a telephone worker whose depressed. We tell the deepest secrets and watch each other’s back and call foul when we shift blame. We make plans for the outside but know we’ll never see each other again.
We get one call a day. A girl who burned her house down ripped the receiver off the wall.
She gets shipped to the other side. We peek through wired windows to Catatonia.
I jump through all the hoops and more. I’m staff favorite.
Got outta there in 5 days.
Short version:
It’s time to write the book.
What a novel idea.
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