pimping psychotics

She comes into the room, looks over my shoulder, says I look pretty today. Looking over my shoulder. Looking at the pictures, everyone’s pictures. Art therapy. We all paint pictures and she looks at them. Twice a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays Linda to comes in watching us to paint pictures.

Mine’s a cat. It’s got cat eyes and all the colors of a cat. Says it doesn’t look like a cat. I know what looks like a cat and my picture looks like a cat. The man in the television tells me sometimes to be careful around Linda because she wants to give my pictures to the devil. Is the man in the TV the devil?

I don’t know if the man is the devil.

The doctor says for three hours I didn’t move. The man in the TV told me not to listen to the doctor, that the doctor is working with Linda. Linda tells me my cat is beautiful and that my treatment is improving. Makes me paint more pictures.

In my room, safe. Safe with my yellow walls. Safe with my green sheets. Safe with my meds. Twice a day I take my meds. Loxapine and chlorpromazine hydrochloride. Zulcopenthixol acetate and prochlorperazine. Pretty colors, pretty pills, sometimes but not always nice feelings, very sleepy.

Linda is not a doctor.

Linda is a therapist.

Linda has new earrings. Linda’s earrings are expensive and she is smiling at me notice them. Today’s an ostrich, Ted paints a house. He says it’s an airplane but I know airplanes and he’s not an airplane he’s a house. Paints a house.

Dozens of pictures.

Sometimes pictures go in the hallway by the cafeteria. Sometimes my pictures. They go in the hallway and go away. Never see them again. Bye bye! Gone forever.

The man on the TV says global warming is making the polar bears hermaphroditic. He says I am global warming the polar bears but I’m not global warming the polar bears. He says Linda is not a doctor. He says Islamic fundamentalists exploded a temple in Jerusalem killing seventy five people and injuring seven.

The doctor changes the channel.

I paint dolphins and hermaphroditic polar bears. I paint koalas and peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut butter sandwiches are my favorite sandwiches because they are thick and good and stick to the roof of my mouth.

The birds are loud and the street smells like cars. The cars are loud. Today is field trip day and we go to the museum. The bus took us to the museum and we are walking in.

Dinosaurs are scary and I don’t like them. Mummies also scary. The man on the TV says a new species of dinosaur was discovered outside Ulan Bator displaying nearly perfect fossilization. Shoes squeak on floors. The lights in the ceiling and the floors are the same lights, shiny and beautiful.

Tammy is not a doctor. Tammy is a clinican. Tammy is taking us on a tour through the museum. We looked at geodes and we looked at moon rocks and at Tesla’s prototype alternating current dynamo which revolutionized methods of transmitting electricity over long distances.

Looking at paintings. Looking at Monets and Van Goghs and Warhols. I don’t see Monet or Van Gogh or Warhol anywhere. This picture looks like my picture. This pictures IS my picture. My picture in a museum.

Not my name. Not my picture. Sure looks like my picture.

(c) j baugher 2006