ManicWorld Magazine

This is the place where I let
all my walls come clean down.
They cradle the half-broken,
give us orange juice, tepid water.

Reeking of camphor, sterility,
like a knife through glass,
nothing but sticky sharp fingers
and rosaries between heaving breasts.

Confessions are easy at the cooler,
they come harder in offices and halls,
hallowed like heroin. She tells me
I’m sick—like I didn’t know, like

I didn’t feel the heron’s breadth—
she wonders if I’ll be safe out there.
Dip my hands in ice, no, again.
Assume that I will hang myself

on faucets, on doorknobs, on railings.
Jamie’s doing time for picking bugs
out of his skin and I care so much.
His wounds like Christ.

*mailing address for Shelby Baptist Hospital’s acute mental health ward.