Thorazine Shuffle

I started feeling sorry for myself 
long before I caught my reflection 
in the linoleum tiles stretching into blind corners

Before the snap of magnetic doors
forced  delusions into a word salad ballyhoo

Before they wrapped me
in blanket restraints
hushing me for visit day

Before melancholy macaroni people
strapped to rolling recliners
wiped their feces with their faces

Before meandering nurses 
rattled paper cups at me like a baby

Before standing monolithically
in furniture-less rooms made friends
with yellow walls to talk to

Before urinating on plastic beds
turned cold

Before ice cream on my lips
hardened on my shirt

Before seclusion rooms
echoed out my name

Before they started asking questions 
about keloids behind TV monitors

Before being told I exist
between a millisecond 
of a synaptic cleft

Before linoleum tile
talked me into heading down this way

Before the medication 
made it take all day to get there

before my life became a step at a time…

one two, one two
one two, one two