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Midnight Room Check—
Code Blue, 3 North, Bed 2

Marilee Pritchard

No, I’m not betrothed,
nor am I running off to fight on foreign fronts.
I’m an inpatient consumer
pacing the north wing
of a behavioral health hospital.
This implies that I made poor choices
as if anybody in their right mind,
would choose to come here.
My commitment is a mandate not an option.

Dressed in floral scrubs, a nurse
wheels a Margarita cart stocked
with shots that sting like love
and pills more powerful than prayer.
Lithium helps the manic climb down heaven.
Zoloft permits the anxious to leave their rooms.
If you get out of line, a squirt of
Thorazine will put you down.

Like bit players in a comic opera—
Sally Saucer weeps a pocketful of tears
unable to discern whether she mourns
the death of her son or the dissolution of a lodestar.
Mira, prima ballerina assoluta (so she says)
Twirls relentless in her sparkler dress.
Michael, who believes he blew his brain
Into his hand (it’s a safe place to talk)
talks softly to himself.
His soliloquy comforts him
almost as much as a cigarette.

Edgy as a jigsaw puzzle,
we cannot piece ourselves back together.
Our parts now disassembled ; no spares to spare.
The warranty expired long ago.
Mr. Doctor Daddy, let me go home.
I do not want to dance this dance again.
I am the mistress of broken parts and slivered hearts.
I smile and nod hoping to game the system.
My mind and I are in cahoots.
Together we’ll try to make a go of it.
We are the wedding of the jack and queen
The one who has nothing left wins the hand.

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