Thorazine shuffle

[tmanzano]

I started feeling sorry for myself
long before I had seen my reflection
in the shimmery linoleum tiles
stretching into blind corners

Toward magnetic doors
where melancholy macaroni people
strapped to rolling recliners
stare at Plexiglas TV's

I wear yesterdays black and white
a step at a time, one two, one two
but see breaths collectively stop
when the dead walk the halls

As cold as this place is
my head has been on fire
they slam it into origami cups
rattled at me like a baby

Coo and fall
face first into tomorrows
slobber on Fir spoons, flavor
mixed with vanilla ice cream
makes it taste like Wednesday

When they are out of vanilla
I get an extra rattler
sucked up in a syringe
and a bolted bed of oak
from the eighties

In gloves, they pull my hair
because it make me twitch
and no one wants me spitting
while my eyes are closed

They say things like, "We'll talk about this later"
wrap my wrists in sheep's wool, wrapped in leather
clasped by buckles, pulled
tight enough to close my eyes
because choclate doesn't have a taste
and neither did feeling sorry for myself