Mrs. O'Day's Dinning Room (A Poem on Mental Distrubances)

Mrs. O’Day’s Dinning Room
(A poem on mental disturbances)

She’s no beginner
In her elaborate sequels
To do herself harm
Suicide or spite
She could fool the best
With her hidden sickness
(passive dependence,
Manic edge, borderline
Schizophrenic —eyes cocked)
Now bobbing back and forth
In an armchair (full of medicine)
Locking the doors behind her
In fear of shadows and the weird.
When she’s all there
She’s always the new woman;
She used to be, pretty
As pretty can be,
Now fat and aging
Carefully she hammered
Herself out like that…
Slowly, slowly, so men would
Avoid her, leave her be;
She knew she was breakable
Too brittle to live among the
Malice and mad, the crooks
And the deceivers, I say—
Too brittle, as old ceramic.
She now talks shallow
Over the phone, like a mouse
Slowly opening up it jaws
Listening, staring face—
Wondering if she’ll be devoured
Before she speaks, or
Dragged under the carpet…
And needing weeks and weeks
To rebound and recuperate?
She most always feels alone.
She even ambushes herself to
Hide inside her apartment
Fending off her fiends and ghosts!
When they’re gone, she
joins the world again, in
the patients’ dinning room.

#2356 4-20-2008 (this is a poem on the life of an old friend, of mine, dedicated to her, dedicated to MS). It is a sad case in so many folks who have to deal with mental disorders. But in America anyhow, there are places to go, and medication to take helping one to make it through a life somewhat normal. Alas, for the third world, where I spend much of my time, and have visited asylums, and do not have all these leverages.