Morning
It’s 7 am
No sleep here.
The vitals machine beeps, beeps
And someone screams down the hall.
They clamp my finger
BP is good, okay
On to the next
Victim.
Minutes later my door opens
Breakfast time
or should i say
Rubber eggs and dry cereal.
My sheet, if it can be called that
Scratches my arms
I have to get up- or ill be labeled
Noncompliant
And have even more days added on to
My stay in the Crazy Hotel.
I shuffle to the day room-
And am surrounded by lifeless eyes
Rocking bodies and sliced skin
The nurses sit and watch us
We are animals- but then again
even animals
Can be left alone

Afternoon
I sit around
They give us books to read
An old TV in the corner
But mostly
I just sit and think
The clock moves on the wall
As slow as a snail
Time doesn’t pass quickly
In this Place
I wait to see Him
He says he wants
Me get out of here
But he only has 20 minutes
a day for me
not including weekends.
He has other “guests” to check
More medications to change
I’m just a blip on his
Case load.
He doesn’t care.

3 PM.
They take us outside.
Sunlight tastes so foreign
When you only feel it
One hour every
Other Day.
I don’t know whether it is Monday or Thursday.
I just know
That today is day number 32
Of an indefinitely long stay.
A basketball thuds against
A black top.
A siren shrieks from a few blocks
Away.
Will another guest be joining us?
Only time will tell.

Evening
They shuffle those of us on
Level 3
To the dining hall.
Tonight’s Spaghetti-
if it can even be called that.
I don’t eat much- its
Hard to be hungry
In this place, or
At all for that matter.
I look out the window
My one connection to
The outside world
The sun is fading
Its streaked red tonight
Bright red
Blood.
As red as the stripes
On my arms.
My tickets into this place.

Night
10 pm. Bed time.
Day 32 has come to
An end.
The nurse gives me
One of the little white pills
That take me away
Into dreamland.
I stick out my tongue.
For I am not even trusted
To swallow.

I am roommate-less for now.
The walls my only companion,
My neighbors scream’s my only
F r i e n d.
Time blurs- the air feels thick.
Looks like my sweet little treat is
Kicking in.
How many more days until i check out?
But here in my cardboard box bed
I think about how i earned my stay.
I turn towards the wall.
32 days and now 32 nights.
What has changed?
I am tired.
I am so very tired.
And i am wishing and thinking
And regretting-
If only 32 days ago-i had been taken
To a different type of hotel-
Above the red streaked
Sky.