With my Eyes Closed

I wrote this poem after the seventh time I was put into a hospital.

The empty, desolate sound of an institutional air system

once again fills my head

If I close my eyes I can almost imagine it is the sound

Of wind, rushing across the sand dunes of the Sahara

or the distant crashing of a rainforest waterfall

Bur then I open my eyes and

Sterile, indifferent white

Walls windows floors sheets doors

Fill my vision

So uncaring, so barren

Seeming only to underscore, mirror

the state in which I exist

I wonder,

Why don't they fill these rooms with color?

Would it drive the already teetering mind over the edge?

I think not

I think more it would remind

Us, Me, You

of the

Life Sex Vibrancy Noise Love Music Flowers Streets Children

-Reality-

We are missing

and silently urge us to recover

It is the hollow white noise of these hollow white rooms

That takes us over the edge