It starts with dripping water, in my ear or in my head.

It almost always starts at night as I twist and turn in bed.

By morning, her voice speaks my name.

Over and over, louder and louder the Dark One makes her call.

She wishes to destroy me, but then, don’t they all?

 Finally, she delivers her message loud and clear.

“You’re an abomination. You should not be here.”

I try to talk to mother about the danger at my door.

She tries to poison me with meds. I throw her to the floor.

“Oh, God, not this again.” I see a sea of faces.

Hands all over me burn my skin and drag me to dark places.

The screaming ambulance fails to quiet the pungent voice,

She tells me to go back home, but I know I have no choice.

For days I’ve wandered to and fro, mumbling without direction

Because I don’t cooperate, they give me an injection.

Still I resist, my eyes ablaze. 

I’m committed for three days.

The nurse talks at and over me as if I were a child

I’m roughly tossed and tightly tied. They say I have gone wild.

The poison that is put in me takes the me in ‘Me’ in hand

Her voice is now a whisper. My mouth is full of sand.

I feel a lot of nothing. There’s putty in my head

Worse, I can remember everything they said –

The doctor that called me noncompliant

Said even sane, I would be defiant

Tell the nurse who called me crazy

I’m not stupid, when I’m hazy

Let me go. Let me be.

No wonder I just talk to me.