Running (from) the Asylum
We did not call the doctors to ask
permission to see our loved ones this time.
That’s the only thing the past can be good for:
a repertoire for (mostly) idiot proofing oneself.
We tried to enter through the back.
The doors were locked;
we had to coach our loved ones
like they were criminals
(apparently, it’s dangerous not to know
your own name anymore, even when no one
has reminded you in ages who you are)
to undo the latches. It’s hard to explain
from the outside, especially if you’ve never
seen the lock before. When they finally let us in—
of course they did not trust us—we sang to them
until they walked with us out under the blue
in the sky, burning with summer, and crows plotting
on telephone lines. You wouldn’t have known
who among us was free and who was patient.
Bullet-Point List
Two high-school boys in my hometown
plotted
. mass death
. in secret
· for over a year.
Their plans undiscovered,
they released a ghost
and the columbine
got a permanent identity change.
I didn’t know it was a flower
until two decades later.
I’ve heard ghosts are good teachers,
but all I’ve learned is
. how to be rigid,
· vigilant,
· always check for exits
as soon as I arrive,
· always read the last page
of every book
just in case.
And all I know is that
· it’s been a generation
since teenagers—
kids only four grades
ahead of me at most—
lost their lives
as they were heading to lunch,
· and that last day of innocence
still feels like yesterday.
Because it is.
And it will be tomorrow.
Everywhere and everywhere.
Megan Wildhood is a writer, editor and writing coach who helps her readers feel seen in her monthly newsletter, poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her full-length poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her writing, working with her and her mental-health and research newsletter at meganwildhood.com.
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