Patchwork

These needles picked me apart at the seams,
I was distilled in depths of alcohol,
bleaching my rainbow skin sallow,
and leaving patchwork pieces on stained carpet.
My knocking knees were tied with strands of daisychains,
weak in walking,
and shaking in stuttered footsteps.
A ragbag of chemicals,
they wheeled into the clinic,
that smelt of wet paint and exposed thighs.
My spine felt curved in horseshoe patterns
and there were twisted anchors
hooked onto my ankles,
as they tried to make me walk the straight line to the Office of Errors.

Purple Chairs line the tiled pavement,
And the lampshades swing,
like elastic pedals,
creaking along the paper ceiling,
burning filaments to my sockets,
plugged into the first feelings of withdrawal.

I dreamt there was hidden acid in her wallpaper.
My cotton hands rub against it,
picking at the echoes of previous maydays.
The watermelons on the walls were warning signs,
for 'May induce Loss of Sanity.'

That is all I remember from meeting Miss.Twelve Steps.
It passed in a foreign eclipse of wet bedsheets,
vomit sticking to the back of my throat,
as automatic scientists attempted to sew me up,
with plastic thread,
knotted in ill-fitting patterns,
buttoned in with shrill voices,
and crackling microphones.

My wooden freckles greeted patients,
with downsized wrists,
and plague stapled to their skin,
clapped onto cheekbones underneath lifeless baggage,
chipping off into black white and red,
like a gothic holocaust,
sitting, picking at muffins in the canteen.

I used to be the same pill pilgrim,
caressing saints of cyanide with saliva,
and leaving trails on my wrists like a timeline,
of each bad trip.
Near the very cellar of my elbow,
was the time I dreamt I was choking on my own placenta.


Three months of my throat twisting with blood,
peeling noses,
raw skin,
couch talks,
clean water,
Hero stories,
I was free to go.


They'd handled my fragile fragments of bargain basement skin,
Hinged me together like,
A doll tapestry.
'I was fixed' they told me.
But my patchwork skin was all mismatched and uncoordinated,
And They had deconstructed me

like reverse eggshells
--to leave me cracking on the inside--

By: Anonymous

(Author notes: Hi, this is about someones time in rehab.)