i digress...

Lady Xanax

Addiction is such a dirty word.
I prefer (enter pretty word here)
I prefer Xanax over breathing techniques,
and Ritalin over study breaks.
I prefer Percoset over pain-
and Ambien over insomnia.
Numb the numbness I say.

I prefer 3 dollars a pill rather than 5,
but I take what I can get.
I prefer not to feel.
Not to be aware
of the worry in my chest,
or fear in my heart.

I prefer going up
rather than coming down,
but I take the good with the bad.
Until I don't give myself the chance
to come down,
to crash.

So I'm popping pills
to offset the pills I've popped.
And medicating the withdrawal from self-medication.

I've taken too many,
and gravity takes hold of my body.
It's not the pills
it's the world-
melting away,
sucking me in,
ending.

I prefer the pills
until every muscle starts to ache
and my brain stops working
until I feel like my cells might
e x p l o d e
and I'm puking 'til I choke
until sleep doesn’t come
but nightmares still exist.
Then
I prefer sobriety.

the Kaufman Unit.four

She had barely finished the imitation rice pudding when Intern2 walked into the dining hall.
“Wonderful,” Hayden thought.

“Why don’t we talk about why you’re here.”
“Okay.”
Intern2 waited expectantly for Hayden to talk about “the incident”. Hayden waited silently for a question. She was tired of talking, now she required prodding.
“What happened Friday night that brought you to the ER?”
“My girlfriend was scared. She thought I overdosed.”
“Do you want to talk about what you took and why?”
“No.”
Intern2 stared. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so taken aback if Hayden wasn’t so composed. She thought for a moment, then asked:
“When did you meet up with your friend?”
“My girlfriend.”
“Sorry, your girlfriend.”
“I could use the term partner if that would make you feel more comfortable.” Hayden raised an eyebrow. She was testing the water. Silence. Ten seconds. Twenty.
“Maybe we should do this later, when you feel more comfortable talking.”
“Sounds good.” Hayden exited the room, her right shoulder twitching. Composed, on what planet? She passed the half-door of the nurses’ station.
“Hi honey, how you feelin’? You look terrible,” the nurse walked toward the cabinet before Hayden could answer.
“Here why don’t you take an Ativan, there’s a group starting just down the hall in ten minutes if you feel up to it.” Hayden took the pill and water from NurseA without hesitance and went straight to her room. The coarse white sheets were calling her. It was, after all, acceptable to nap at anytime in the Kaufman Unit.

the Kaufman Unit.two

The Kaufman Unit was impenetrable. First class confinement at its worst. Two parallel doors blocked its occupants from the outside world. They were standard galvanized steel-sheet, fireproof doors. Much like the ones that separated hallways in most schools, except these doors were always locked from both sides, and weren’t magnetically held open at all times. From the inside you could look through the 10” by 10” windows, separated by five and a half feet, and glimpse the open-air. A few trees, a parking lot, and beyond that houses most definitely better furnished than the K.U.

The thin metal wire between the two panes of half inch thick glass formed a classic, metal fence diamond pattern. If you closed one eye and looked through the windows just right, you could align the patterns. Some patients never look passed those windows, never waited for their loved ones to appear on the other side. While others spent all day pacing- just to glimpse the freedom beyond the metal doors.

Twice a day there were fifteen minute periods in which the “murses”(male nurses) would take the patients down the corridor and out of the windowless, alarmed steel door to a small fenced in area for some fresh air. But Hayden never went outside. She only heard about the ten foot high diamond fence, lined with barbed wire and monitored by a wall mounted security camera. “When do they break out the taser guns?“ she thought. Hayden would spend the fifteen minutes on her bed writing in the journal Dr. DarkEyes gave her. It was the only time she knew that no one would come knocking. Not that knocking was necessary in the K.U., the doors were never allowed to be closed during daylight hours. At night, when everyone lie restless (or in ativan induced sleep) in their beds, the “murses” would come to lock them from the outside and then open the center rectangular cutout so that they could check on everyone periodically. Even the bathrooms had no locks. Hayden reminded her roommate four times that she was about to use the bathroom before trusting it was safe to pee. After all Song Draft was a pathological liar as far as she could tell. Who knew what else was wrong with her?

Hayden’s first day was filled with questions and staring contests, doctor’s offices and day room appointments with the interns. By lunch time she had grown tired of the psychological games she knew they were playing with her, she was after all a third year psychology student. But the hours seem to trickle by much slower when you’re locked up.
"Only nine more to go, eight if I get visitors."

the Kaufman Unit.three

Hayden was [pissed]. She felt lightheaded, like after the first cigarette of the morning. She wanted to scream at Dr. DarkEyes, but she couldn’t. She wanted a cigarette, but that wasn’t possible either. The nicotine patches just weren’t the same. She missed the hiss of the match as she struck it lit. She missed the taste of tobacco and menthol. But mostly she missed the way it felt to hold the cigarette between her fingers as she pressed it to her mouth and took that first drag. She wanted the calm that came with it. Hayden lay down on the generic sheets, hating the way they felt rough and unwelcoming against her bare skin. Song Draft was singing aloud to her wireless radio headphones again, but Hayden didn’t care that much anymore. At least she didn’t have The Screamer as her roommate.

the Kaufman Unit.one

The night before, Hayden had emptied the contents of her pockets onto her own bed. The rings she had meant to put on that morning, her keys, a pack of Camel Frost’s, a lighter, and a small blue dime bag lay scattered on her black sheets. The dime bag was empty, even though she had bought it that morning. “This is my life,” she thought as she began to sway. The effect of the drugs in her system begun to sink in. Too many hits, too many mg’s, too many bottles- and she was out.

But today, when she emptied the pockets of her Nike sweatpants, drawstring so kindly removed by the “murses”, all that lay on the white stiff bed of the Kaufman Unit was a pencil. “This is my life.”