¬ (slam) poetry, lyrics, & thoughts ¬

Unnamed Poem // Grand Slam Finals Round #3 Denver

(The video that goes with this poem has been removed from YouTube, kinda makes me sad because this was my favorite.)

I am nine years old and my mother promises me ice-cream after I talk to a man with a blue tie and white coat. Suddenly an orange bottle appears on my bedside table and twice a day my mother tells me, "take your pill."

I am thirteen in the summertime and everyone tries to fix me. I start pinching my sides wishing there was less of me to correct. She calls it Anorexia Nervosa and mixes honey with my pill.

I am five and the woman I play finger puppets with is whispering in the hallway. My mother is shaking her head and saying 'no.' In the car Mom tells me that my therapist wanted to put me on pills.

We have labeled 'human' as a medical condition. Locking people in pharmaceutical cages. Medication as preemptive strikes. We are building the perfect army. Hazy children become brain-dead teenagers become easily controlled adults.

I wake up fourteen years old and my tongue is a corpse like I chase the pills with shots of formaldehyde. My eyes only know how to roll back into themselves and my teeth fall out onto my pillow every night. I have lived in a revolving door of doctor's offices and suspension meetings. I do not remember ages ten through twelve..

I am sixteen and the taste of bile has become familiar to the point of sweetness. She has run out of things to give me. I am afraid when there is no pill..

My step-brother is on so many uppers to bring him down that he has to take downers to go to sleep. He is the perfect, inexhaustible soldier..

I swallow my fear until I am numb. I am one of too many children living on the verge of sedation. Why can't I cry without feeling guilty..?

I am a shadow of the person I dreamt of being. Medical histories like dog tags to keep track of us. This is the chemical warfare we should be afraid of. We used to dream cloudlessly. We used to sing lullabies.. Recite prayers longer than their drug bibles. Press our palms together with no pill in between. The pharmacy is church. Our prayers are answered by the hand that counts the medication au courant.

Body of Klonopin and blood of Amoxicillin. Scripture of active ingredients.. For every 500 milligrams the pharmacist adds, we get ten more years of forgetting that our days are numbered. Saluting the motto, 'there is always a pill for that.' 

I can't focus. Take your pill! Dextroamphetamine.

I can't go outside. Take your pill! Lorazepam.

The clock keeps ticking. Haloperidol.

I can't sleep. Zolpidem.

I don't know how I feel. Clozapine. Fentazin. Neurontin.

It has been 8 years since my bloodstream was clean. My rivers run toxic, never knowing their own contents. The thought of my true self is too terrifying of an idea to face. Some days I feel like a squatter in my own brain. I don't know who the rightful owner of this skull is, I just know that my teeth don't feel like home anymore. My thoughts echo through me as indistinguishable, static hum. There are papers in my psychiatrist's desk that, if signed, mean I blink and forget another 2 years. I have gotten used to the holes in my memory, but not the ones in my voice. My capacity for emotions has grown into a phantom limb. My heart is a tattered kite whose colors will never see the sky again.. The tails and strings lay mothy and faded, uncertain, broken, and confused. 

This madness is all I know..

-Created and produced by Youth Speaks/ Brave New Voices (Poem written and performed by Isabel Elliott, Clarke Sondermann, and Toluwanimi Obiwole.)

Note: This poem is one of my absolute favorites. I hope I spelled all of the medications right! Please let me know if there are any poems or songs you would like to recommend<3 

Have a great morning/ afternoon / evening / night! ~Shianne (: