The Ward’s Prayer

Ursula Curiosa

This poem is dedicated to the life and living memory of my irreligious friend who named himself Justin Jayne Wardrip (March 10, 1989 – January 18, 2023). Justin took electroshock therapy for years then his brain melted.

Our psych ward
Which art all around us
Halloween fills thee up

Thy dinner-cart come
My living will be done
On Earth as it is Elsewhere

Give us this night our nightly meds
And forgive us our outbursts
As we forgive them who outburst against us

And lead us not into the Quiet Room
But deliver us to the bus stop

For thine is the liberal democracy
And the authority
And the paper pill cup
Forever and ever, in the name of social control.  Amen.

____________________
Image: “Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital,” Christopher Payne