NAPSBURY REVISITED IN 86                   96



I remember her running down hospital corridors flapping her arms, 
Listening to radios in her mind.  
She had been awake for a week and a group of us were visiting 
her best friend who had just had an abortion. 
The emotions broke her into madness.

Her next hospital at Christmas had HUGE windows onto the garden. 
A dozen patients watched Close Encounters on TV and I wondered if 
they thought it was the news or a documentary.
A big eyed girl appeared next to me, pulled my sleeve, 
"You'll be my friend won't you?"

Four of us had gone with her mother to visit - our bags were checked
for drugs and chocolate was removed.   
"It will interfere with the medication" Probably a present for the nurses.
However, bananas were allowed and all else I recall were her
attempts to listen to our pretended normal conversation and 
encouragement. Then her desperate tears when we were leaving.

Some months later I returned, in the centre of my own breakdown,
having no idea she was still there -
someone had altered the driveway sign to read;

‘NO BARKING’

I volunteered to work at an asylum
While three fifths insane
Where quacks looked the same as patients
In corridors' rainbow lane
Got a lift on the back of a moped
Shivering and palest green
Sat before the Director
Paranoid at being seen
Had to go outside for a cigarette
Smoke the panic down
An inmate on the parallel
Childhood’s nightmare clown
Tempted by acoustics
Of the tree named wards and hall
But then inside the kitchen
The Fear returned to call
Our friend shuffl'd toward us
No idea of who we were
A fruitcake was in her hands
We almost recognised her.

Six years later she let me stay beside her and sleep 
while I was rancid with fever.
An escape into care from the doghaired carpet of the living room.
God bless the alcoholics and their breakdowns, bless us all.
Hope all of us will make it out.




///This is the third piece I have written for this person, she hasn’t written 
to me for the last five years-should she see this, I hope she will again.
I still cannot believe that during my breakdown, I thought it would be
a good idea to work part-time in a loony bin. Just goes to show…
Going truly crazy isn’t actually all that much fun folks.///