I’m presently locked into a violent and somewhat personal battle with the words which exist in my head. I’ve found most of the relevant ones already, now I’m struggling to rearrange them into an order which pleases me. This battle’s been going on for quite some time, and my associated war wounds are real and…… Continue reading #WritingCommunity
White pill- you are my compromise. Not accepting you means delusion realised. You are my answer to the aches and screams, my solution to the ill at ease, I swallow you whole, yet you consume me, your chemical daze inebriates me, dull daze, dull gaze. While I am with you I can’t claim to be…… Continue reading White pill
Matilda moved into Fitzmary 2 long after I did; I think I had been there for six months when she came onto the ward. I was never close to her. She was my age, and so we might have perhaps become friends in another situation, or in another environment; but for the few months we…… Continue reading Matilda- the girl who made me realise the unintended impact we have on the people around us, and the awful power of assumption
There was another girl I remember from Fitzmary 2 ward, her name was Eleanor and she was a child of mother earth, connected to the cosmic force like a magnet to a fridge. She was about my age, which at that time was around 25, and I vividly remember the first time I met her.…… Continue reading Eleanor- the girl who sat with trees
There was another woman I remember from Fitzmary 2 ward- her name was Ruth and she was as silent and mysterious as a gliding ghost. She didn’t smoke, and didn’t seem to do very much out and about the ward or the hospital grounds. Nina and I would go out to classes and spend afternoons…… Continue reading Ruth- the woman who glided as softly as a ghost
Tracy was another inhabitant of Fitzmary 2, the ward I lived on for a year with Christine and various other apparently mad individuals. She was a forked and angular woman, and would only ever wear black. Her whole wardrobe consisted of black dresses and heels, black skirts, vest tops and shawls which she would drape…… Continue reading Tracy- the woman with the crooked black shoes
On Fitzmary two, the ward I lived on at The Bethlam Hospital, I met Christine, the tattooed woman. Her hair was bleached as light as the sun, and her arms, chest, back and legs were adorned with lines and symbols, and the names of the people she had previously known. She had the fairest skin, yet…… Continue reading Christine- the tattooed woman
I met two women on a ward. They were sitting together in a packed hospital canteen on a sunny afternoon some time in April. They were so entirely and inconceivably opposite it was disarming. One resembled a startled bird. She was scrawny and fragile and twitched as she continuously glanced about her, her eyes darting about…… Continue reading I met two women on a ward.
Mad new world 