What You Made Me

By Anthony Ehlers

The grinding of the days goes by,

Like heavy gears,

You can feel it in your bones.

This, among other things,

Darker things,

You can try to ignore

With the childish hope

That if I don’t look directly

Into the darkness

It doesn’t exist.

My heroes are ghosts.

But me?

They haven’t found a way to kill me yet.

I put the gun to my head

But I had no bullets.

My whole fucking life

Needs a mental health day!

There is a diagnosis and a drug

For everyone.

Just watch the commercials

On the 5 o’clock news.

They’ll sell you any drug you want,

And “If you cannot afford this medication,

We may be able to help.”

How nice of them:

The pusher man moved from the corner

To a two minute commercial

Offering to help me buy his shit

Just to get me on it.

Don’t let them bury me

I’m not dead yet,

Just out of space and time,

Out of frame, and out of mind.

I’m like a dog in a cage.

If I’m a good boy, I get to go for a walk,

I can even put the leash on myself.

Programmed,

Institutionalized,

Didn’t I used to shine?

Now I’m dull, faded

A seer of visions.

I’m still a spark that can catch fire,

It’s just that

They took my fire on a shakedown,

And I never got it back.

I’ve been building up for so long

My explosion just might obliterate me.

My mental health doctor said

I used to think more.

“Think more?”

Fuck, my mind never shuts off.

It’s an illness the State gave me

After 5 1/2 years of isolation.

It’s not a color, but a condition,

Not a solid,

But a stripe.

How do I keep it together?

Is that what this is?

If I walk out of this place

And make a mistake, just remember,

I am what you made me.