[dead_battery]

–ASK.
ME.
WHY.
(A long silence.)
–Why did you cut your arm?
–Because it feels fucking great. Because it feels fucking amazing.
– Can I look?
–You can look. But don't touch.
–(Looks) And you don't think you're ill?
– No.
–I do. It's not your fault. But you have to take responsibility for
your own actions. Please don't do it again.
I dread the loss of her I've never touched
love keeps me a slave in a cage of tears
I gnaw my tongue with which to her I can never speak
I miss a woman who was never born
I kiss a woman across the years that say we shall never meet
Everything passes
Everything perishes
Everything palls
my thought walks away with a killing smile
leaving discordant anxiety
which roars in my soul
No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope
A song for my loved one, touching her absence
the flux of her heart, the splash of her smile
In ten years time she'll still be dead. When I'm living with it, dealing
with it, when a few days pass when I don't even think of it, she'll still
be dead. When I'm an old lady living ion the street forgetting my

name she'll still be dead, she'll still be dead, she'll still be dead, it's
just
fucking
over
and I must stand alone
My love, my love, why have you forsaken me?
She is the couching place where I never shall lie
and there's no meaning to life in the light of my loss
Built to be lonely
to love the absent
Find me
Free me
from this
corrosive doubt
futile despair
horror in repose
I can fill my space
fill my time
but nothing can fill this void in my heart
The vital need for which I would die
Breakdown
–No ifs or buts.
–I didn't say if or but, I said no.
–Can't must never have-to always won't should shan't.
The unnegotiables
Not today.
(Silence.)

–Please. Don't switch off my mind by attempting to straighten me
out. Listen and understand, and when you feel contempt don't
express it, at least not verbally, at least not to me.
(Silence.)
–I don't feel contempt.
–No?
–No. It's not your fault.
–It's not your fault, that's all I ever hear, it's not your fault, it's an
illness, it's not your fault, I know it's not my fault. You've told
me that so often I'm beginning to think it is my fault.
–It's not your fault.
–I KNOW.
–But you allow it.
(Silence.)
Don't you?
–There's not a drug on earth can make life meaningful.
–You allow this state of desperate absurdity.
(Silence.)
You allow it.
(Silence.)
–I won't be able to think. I won't be able to work.
–Nothing will interfere with your work like suicide.
(Silence.)
–I dreamt I went to the doctor's and she gave me eight minutes to
live. I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room half an hour.
(A long silence.)
Okay, let's do it, let's do the drugs, let's do the chemical
lobotomy, let's shut down the higher functions of my brain and
perhaps I'll be a bit more fucking capable of living.

Let's do it.
abstraction to the point of
unpleasant
unacceptable
uninspiring
impenetrable
irrelevant
irreverent
irreligious
unrepentant
I don't imagine
(clearly)
that a single soul
could
would
should
or will
and if they did
I don't think
(clearly)
that another soul
a soul like mine
could
would
should
or will

irrespective
I know what I'm doing
all too well
No native speaker

irrational
irreducible
irredeemable
unrecognisable
derailed
deranged
deform
free form
obscure to the point of
True Right Correct
Anyone or anybody
Each every all
drowning in a sea of logic
this monstrous state of palsy
still ill
Symptoms: Not eating, not sleeping, not speaking, no sex drive, in
despair, wants to die.
Diagnosis: Pathological grief.
Sertraline, 50mg. Insomnia worsened, severe anxiety, anorexia, (weight
loss 17kgs,) increase in suicidal thoughts, plans and intention.
Discontinued following hospitalisation.
Zolpiclone, 7.5mg. Slept. Discontinued following rash. Patient
attempted to leave hospital against medical advice. Restrained by three
male nurses twice her size. Patient threatening and uncooperative.
Paranoid thoughts – believes hospital staff are attempting to poison her.
Melleril, 50mg. Co-operative.
Lofepramine, 70mg, increased to 140mg, then 210mg. Weight gain
12kgs. Short term memory loss. No other reaction.

Argument with junior doctor whom she accused of treachery after
which she shaved her head and cut her arms with a razor blade.
Patient discharged into the care of the community on arrival of acutely
psychotic patient in emergency clinic in greater need of a hospital bed.
Citalopram, 20mg. Morning tremors. No other reaction.
Lofepramine and Citalopram discontinued after patient got pissed of
with side affect and lack of obvious improvement. Discontinuation
symptoms: Dizziness and confusion. Patient kept falling over, fainting
and walking out in front of cars. Delusional ideas – believes consultant
is the antichrist.
Fluoxetine hydrochloride, trade name Prozac, 20mg, increased to 40mg.
Insomnia, erratic appetite, (weight loss 14kgs,) severe anxiety, unable
to reach orgasm, homicidal thoughts towards several doctors and drug
manufacturers. Discontinued.
Mood: Fucking angry
Affect: Very angry.
Thorazine, 100mg. Slept. Calmer.
Venlafaxine, 75mg, increased to 150mg, then 225mg. Dizziness, low
blood pressure, headaches. No other reaction. Discontinued.
Patient declined Seroxat. Hypochondria – cites spasmodic blinking and
severe memory loss as evidence of tardive dyskinesia and tardive
dementia.
Refused all further treatment.
100 aspirin and one bottle of Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon, 1986.
Patient woke up in a pool of vomit and said 'Sleep with a dog and rise
full of fleas.' Severe stomach pain. No other reaction.
Hatch opens
Stark light
the television talks
full of eyes
the spirits of sight
and now I am so afraid

I'm seeing things
I'm hearing things
I don't know who I am
tongue out
thought stalled
the piecemeal crumple of my mind
Where do I start?
Where do I stop?
How do I start?
(As I mean to go on)
How do I stop?
How do I stop?
How do I stop?
How do I stop?
How do I stop? A tab of pain
How do I stop? Stabbing my lungs
How do I stop? A tab of death
How do I stop? Squeezing my heart
I'll die
not yet
but it's here
Please...
Money...
Wife...
Every act is a symbol
the weight of which crushes me
A dotted line on the throat
CUT HERE
DON'T LET THIS KILL ME
THIS WILL KILL ME AND CRUSH ME AND
SEND ME TO HELL
I beg you to save me from this madness that eats me
a sub-intentional death

I thought I should never speak again
but now I know there is something blacker than desire
perhaps it will save me
perhaps it will kill me
a dismal whistle that is the cry of heartbreak around the hellish
bowl at the ceiling of my mind
a blanket of roaches
cease this war
My legs are empty
Nothing to say
And there is the rhythm of madness
–I gassed the Jews, I killed the Kurds, I bombed the Arabs, I
fucked small children while they begged for mercy, the killing
fields are mine, everyone left the party because of me, I'll suck
your fucking eyes out sent them to your mother in a box and
when I die I'm going to be reincarnated as your child only fifty
times worse and as mad as all fuck I'm going to make your life a
living fucking hell I REFUSE I REFUSE I REFUSE LOOK
AWAY FROM ME
–It's all right.
–LOOK AWAY FROM ME
–It's all right. I'm here.
–Look away from me
Why am I stricken?
I saw visions of God
and it shall come to pass

Grid yourselves:
for ye shall be broken in pieces
it shall come to pass
Behold the light of despair
the glare of anguish
and ye shall be driven to darkness
If there is blasting
(there shall be blasting)
the names of offenders shall be shouted form the rooftops
Fear God
and his wicked convocation
a scall on my skin, a seethe in my heart
a blanket of roaches on which we dance
this infernal state of siege
All this shall come to pass
all the words of my noisome breath
Remember the light and believe the light
Christ is dead
and the monks are in ecstasy
We are the abjects
who depose our leaders
and burn incense unto Baal
Come now, let us reason together
Sanity is found in the mountain of the Lord's house on the
horizon of the soul that eternally recedes
The head is sick, the heart's caul torn
Thread the ground on which wisdom walks
Embrace beautiful lies –
the chronic insanity of the sane
the wrenching begins
–At 4.48
when sanity visits
for one hour and twelve minutes I am in my right mind.
When it has passed I shall be gone again,