This piece is featured in Issue No. 10 Bloom
Poetry
I can make attendants laugh
I can make attendants laugh
While declaring I am a risk to myself and others
Watch them chuckle with me at this insanity
Put my belongings in a plastic bag and I am left feeling naked
after a mandatory coat check
Shuffle into a room, maybe with thick glass
onlooking rows of desks and monitors
Maybe a locked room with privacy curtains drawn
Dart around the space like a fish in a new tank
An unfamiliar concrete castle in the distance
A serpentine moat designed to wrap around sick bodies
To keep them in place, strapped to linoleum floors
I am suspended by drop ceilings
And suspected by an iris in the corner of the room
Why are there no doorknobs in this place?