Bellevue Blues Better Than Never Before

Bellevue’s changed from back in the day

The nurse took one look,

her eyes met his

You’re sedated she said

And over medicated

What do you mean he asked

I’m on prescribed meds I’ve been using them for about a year

I just got discharged from Beth Israel Psyche Ward and they gave me all these scripts but I can’t get them filled cause they cut off my coverage

These are my meds, he displayed his scripts; I have to get them filled

young man she stated we don’t just give out drugs like that

Her hand rested on her hip

She wore pressed white cotton trousers

Held a clipboard in her hand

She examined the prescriptions one by one

I get 30 capsules of Cymbalta he said it will cost 145 at drugstore.com and I’m not sure that’s not the generic one either then there’s this Canadian pharmacy sells the generic duloxetine (du LOX e teen) for seventy-three dollars and I live on social security disability I can’t afford all this money I need my drugs - I’m down on my luck waiting for disability retirement insurance to kick in because I really need these medications you see

It’s up to you sweetie she slid the clipboard in his hands, here are some forms to fill out

We have procedures we follow around here - just follow me sir

she led him to a separate room to see the social worker; be interviewed

The social worker politely informed him,

You can’t just fill prescriptions here; we have a clinic you have to attend regularly we don’t just hand out medications we’re responsible for your care and well being too

The patient explained Geodon keeps the hallucinations at bay

Lamogine’s for the bipolar moodswings

Cymbalta along with Mirtazapine works excellently for depression

And helps to control the suicidal ideation

I play chess for 20 hours sometimes I forget to bathe or eat

The Ambien’s to go to sleep - the Klonopin’s to stay calm

I suffer from anxiety and insomnia

Sometimes I take all of them and still can’t sleep

Without them I go manic

It’s just no fun never being allowed a really good night’s sleep

I attend a mental health center

They have doctors nurses therapists even social workers but they don’t have a pharmacy

Well the nurse said it’s up to you it’s either us or them - you have to choose, we give you a month’s supply when you come in each month and there’s no extra charge

you have to make up your mind - let me assure you we excel at treating mental illness

we have the best of everything here that they have there or anywhere else

after all it’s our specialty it always has been

plus we even have a bed ready for you, she smiled sweetly and walked away

He filled out another form and waited once more for his name to be called.

Note: Bellevue Hospital is in New York City's lower Manhattan area. Bellevue opened its first “pavilion for the insane” in 1879 and its first alcoholic ward in 1892. Bellevue Hospital has been famous since then for its mental health services.

Do me right tonight

The pale dawn light shined on his face
I could tell he wasn’t well trapped in his personal hell
Unable to pick himself up like a child who fell
Once too many times running on rhymes
a psychopathic rant
A flaming fuchsia elephant invades my living space
Parades by with a sycophant riding him
While a hierophant stands nearby
reciting Buddhist mantras nam myōhō renge kyō,
Before my eyes behold
a white marble palace
studded with gold and quietly buried
suddenly
beneath black sands of time
He begs admission to another sanatorium
a different mausoleum where the dead struggle
with the living over words written on winds
only ghosts can decipher
coming back to attack they deny the facts
fraught with desire the world’s run amok
a phantasmagoric a little white magic moonlight
dripping ice laden branches will do me
just right tonight poppy

Life's Work

I don’t want to work another day
Hear people talk behind my back and say
I don’t work as hard as I ought to
I left early - got caught - lied and said I was in the library
after the children left
My work was done
Why should I stay
Bereft by 3 pm each day
driven to exasperation
complaints follow me
I came late I leave early
They tell me talk to Thomas who is 5, a year older than the others in his class. He picked up a chair and threw it somewhere. Luckily it hit no one. I could talk to him till I’m blue in the face.
Thomas needs to be in a special setting I'm betting they want some magic answer
They tell me call his mother get her in here
The mother comes in
cigarette dangling from her lips she says what can I do I have to go to work I have to make money. The espresso with milk she sips matching her own brown color, a drop drips down her chin
Downcast eyes
She patiently repeats I have to go to work, I have a family of 4 to support
she's got to hold down the fort, it's not for sport -
tomorrow she's got to go to court, she says- and that's another day lost
I have to pay my bills, what time can I go to my job
working working I talk about Thomas
She shakes her head - she doesn't know what to do
I pray I cry for me and others
I want to live free - I watch her sip her coffee, a cold winter day
My energy dissipates I anticipate our fate, acclimate to
another day, another school, a 15 year old girl is hearing voices, she’s afraid of someone in her head, a neighborhood Santera
A plethora of voices in her head make her scream
I hold her head to allay her pain told her to imagine a beam of white light, God supreme protecting her
no one else knew what to do
So they brought her to me, grateful they said Friday was their day for me
She held my hand and prayed
using strange erratic and loud routines
I told her she’d be ok, I'd keep the demons at bay
told her the saints she prayed to would help her
teachers and students were scared they were glad I was there
They called EMS tell me
I should take the girl no one knew was psychotic to the hospital
They called her parents
I got in the ambulance with her
They were afraid she’d go ballistic again is why they asked me to go with her.
At the hospital they say she was only calm with me cause I entered her world so perfectly
Helped her hold on for hope, played her band-aid, her nursemaid
There are times when there’s no place to go but inside someone's head
join them inside to guide them, I do it so easily it’s because I too am crazy
I long for the american dream - as we glide downstream in my capable hands
my sensibilities attacked by another breaker wave
It’s hard out here for a social worker