I WON by Atara Schimmel

i attended your funeral today
in fact i was
the
one
yes, won
that organized it

it was a beautiful
glorious day
i am waking up
my brain is healing
the birds were singing your demise
the pleasure in their melodies
struck my spirit silly
with delight
the child in me

the five year old children that …
oh you know
come on now
the ones
that you tormented
with your pills
and akathisia ripping through their innocence
and curiosity like a broken stick
only shattered
in hundreds of places
all across this country
and how you spread your lies
in africa and asia and blood becomes water
all across the oceans

which brings me back to this glorious day
where
i
one
yes, hard won
i buried you!
and i organized this magnificent funeral all by my
Self
the self that i was certain
you had stolen
and decimated
and desecrated

but remember i heard the birds
and i felt the trees
and the glee
the glee

today i buried psychiatry!!!

*****

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.