literature

Cycloid Cascade

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Rosary0fSighs's avatar
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Literature Text

The murmuring of innumerable T.V. screens chattering
in my head
a hundred million bees stinging my skin and
white teeth disintegrating

comatose dose of medication to stave off catatonia
raise magnifying glasses in a toast to see inside my mind
a CAT scan.
Two way mirrors
eat my eyes
they're spying on me with silverfish.

The ward wardens say: lady schizophrenia, your mirrors aren't cursed and cracked
it's your mind.
I find webs of lies and cuckoo nests to fly ghosts beneath the gaps in the doors
sink anchors through the floorboards to the cellar, set up safe rooms to hide in
cast my conspiracy nets wide and catch
bites
there are cameras behind the walls.

They watch me all the time, these disembodied eyes
turning the palms of so many time turners
slow, and fast like unpaced hearts needing pace makers
marking my pulse out - the way they need endless ECGs in I.P.
These cool-handed strangers in scrubs and Clozaril whites running surveillance
to unclothe my mind
walking time backward
will she eat the lightbulbs naked? Chew the glass until her
gums bleed like bright mouth breakers from the gumball machines of childhood grocery stores
20 cents and turn hard
scarlet fever bubbles of blood.

They prick my fingertips to check my sugar
prevent re-feeding syndrome ask me how the Cotard's delusions are going.
They're longing to stick needles under my fingernails
interrogate me in a hidden cabin
pulling my nail beds from me, deep in the forest atop
a bed of pine needs in a green fairy ring.

Sail me away on a crystal lake of blue
a grey fraying mushroom boat sending spores like lanterns in the night
Captain my captain throw the life ring overboard
trying to find where the gold apple of discord fell.
A Medieval trick - drink hemlock to make the heart murmur; stop
I drink deep
drink me and make me small
deadlocked in self-destruction and persecution
or delusion?
Force-fed and drinking wolfsbane and aconite.

Battery acid electricity all over my skin
prescription of electro-shock. Sherlock, Shylock, it's not reality
I become detective to my flesh, dissect it for parasites and decay,
half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle... mix it up, and what have you got?
slash morse code across your cockney throat
protecting other people

Star children laid three pieces of stone to tread on and
buy their way to heaven
one white, one red,
one blue
Syracuse accusing Judas - kissing her feet so she
can rest in pieces underground
burrowed safe in a warm dark womb as a pink newborn aardvark or
earthen clay waiting in a kiln tomb
furnace flame licker of orange, red, umber flickering hues
down down down.

Star children changelings
melted ice puddles and chapped bitten lips
melted butter as yellow as an old bruise
burnt burnished amber gold.
Screaming whispers of being unheld
wishing desperate on meteorites to be
clasped to wishbone hearts and told:
I love you and your brokenness
stars fall, black holes fill and vanish; and still
form halos of the brightest celestial light
universal lighthouse quasars.
This was extremely painful to write.

This has been written coming out of months of a harrowing psychotic episode.

Literary and other references:


"The murmuring of innumerable T.V. screens" references Tennyson's "The murmuring of innumerable bees"
this is an effort to describe hearing voices, as well as echoing the constant static of having restless energy, fear, and paranoia in psychosis. The 'bees stinging my skin' and 'teeth disintegrating' describes my horrifying tactile hallucinations.

"lady schizophrenia, your mirrors aren't cursed and cracked" references Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott', with paranoia. I also reference 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', and Harry Potter - a dark humour take on the magical thinking and delusions of reference in schizophrenia, and sadness at how the child I was has turned into this.  

"marking my pulse out - the way they need endless ECGs in I.P.
These cool-handed strangers in scrubs and Clozaril whites running surveillance
"
ECGs measure your heart activity, which is necessary when you're in hospital for an eating disorder. They happen all the damn time, and they're annoying as hell, but important. You have to lie unmoving with wires everywhere, which is hard when you're paranoid and nearly naked in order for them to do it. Clozaril is an antipsychotic. 

References to past hospitalisations: when my fingertips are pricked to check blood-sugar levels frequently (past hospitalisations when I've been severely underweight: hospitalised for co-morbid anorexia nervosa and schizophrenia, involves monitoring blood-sugar levels and checking that I won't go into re-feeding syndrome. But I've become paranoid about nurses trying to 'steal' my blood or wanting to torture me with needles before.  
'Cotard's delusion' can involve, for various people, the belief that you're already dead, your organs are decayed, decaying, or rotting, or you're missing organs or blood. I have experienced this recurring delusion.  

"A Medieval trick - drink hemlock to make the heart murmur; stop" references Longfellow's 'Evangeline'; echoing paranoid delusions of food and drink being poisoned. As well as having heart arrhymias from anorexia. 
Also Keats: 'Ode to a Nightingale'
reference: Whitman's 'Captain, my Captain' is screaming at voices and searching for someone to give you answers.
"drink me and make me small" references Alice in Wonderland and my anorexia nervosa. 


"Battery acid electricity all over my skin
prescription of electro-shock. Sherlock, Shylock, it's not reality
I become detective to my flesh, dissect it for parasites and decay
" - this section I briefly reference Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' and tactile hallucinations again, as well as Sherlock Holmes - paranoid delusions, and trying to 'detect' what's real and what's the illness when you're tearing at your skin 'a pound of flesh....'.

"half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle... mix it up, and what have you got?
slash morse code across your cockney throat
protecting other people
" references 'Pop goes the weasel' and paranoid delusions. It also references suicide attempts and self-harm. I have slashed my throat in the past when psychotic, reality of this hideous disabiling illness. 
'Protecting other people' references the 1960s series 'The Prisoner' (science fiction serial) where an final episode "Once Upon a Time" during interrogation, 'Pop goes the weasel' was sung obsessively with 'P.O.P' used as an order to "protect other people". It really resonates with me with so many of my persecutory delusions about how I feel like I'm being hunted, or as though I'm going to be tortured, or people are going to harm my loved ones, and I need to hold out to save them etc. etc. and how utterly obsessive and bizarre the world of schizophrenia becomes, and how it can twist little things into 'messages'.  

'Star children' references 'star/indigo' children - I've had mental health nurses try to suggest my schizophrenia might just be 'special intuition' 'special ability' etc. etc. in the 'star children' corner of this, it also references telepathy delusions in schizophrenia, where you feel like people are trying to control you.
'Star children' and the 'one blue, one red' and laid at their feet also references one of my favourite books in childhood: "The Star Child" by Oscar Wilde. 
I go on to reference Judas (I'm an atheist). This is about religious delusions.

Star children changelings reference - abelism and disability. Historically changeling children, faeries etc. have actually been children with psychiatric, intellectual, physical and developmental disability.  
 
The end is about hope, lucidity, resilience, acceptance, and help.




 
© 2017 - 2024 Rosary0fSighs
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JohnnyandMe's avatar
I'm on Clozaril and to me it is helping.  I just hate all the blood work