Give Up Yer Auld Pills

Here, I must insist you come into my world

I’ll be lucky if I escape from this maze, so obtuse

Obverse and inside-out, so perverse

Absurd, though you might find the reverse, and no excuse

Here, I’ve got a problem, Can you guess what it is.

I’ve heard you’re a master at curing all ills.

You see, Doctor, lately, it’s all been uphill.

Mmm yes, I’ll take you on, put you on the treadmill,

You’re my patient now and you better be…..

…patient that is, I’ll squeeze you through the ringer

And grind you through the mill.

My new ever-so- patient, are you ready to be?

Oh and lately, I’ve been wanting to kill,

No problem to you I’ll prescribe some pills.

My game is, I write these things , keep them coming back,

For each appointment and every lack.

I take all you say quite literally, and

I’m wont to prescribe quite liberally

If you try to escape to town

I’ll more than likely to send you down.

You’ll take more interest in what I say than your own free will,

You seem agitated today, here take this new pill,

Moody you are, this’ll make you stay still.

Take these ones as well, I’m getting royalty

But to you my ‘friend’ I’ll show no loyalty.

I’ve met your folks and they’re on my side

So “Congratulations”, you’ve joined the tribe.

Though you’ll love me, I’ll see you as often as I like

To then go missing, when you really need me,

Just keep taking the pills ‘till you’ve had your fill,

( you’re imploding, I’m not even listening

Suspend for now your critical thinking

Pop yourself there and don’t stop blinking)

My game is legal, I write them with a quill,

There’s nothing medical about them at all

This is the point of sale, it’s the pills that I sell.

(Take these tokens until you’re broken)

This prescription pad, I’ve got all the clout,

Here, take this one, it’ll knock you out.

Come back to me soon, that’s what it’s about,

(I wonder how long ‘till they figure it out)

My illness is marked by unpleasant self-doubt, (almost grief),

And these pills hit me like a baseball bat,

A sledgehammer by any other name (what a relief)

In the middle of the afternoon

The doctor insulted you today

And you took it up the wrong way

Choosing to take wounded serious offence

Instead of electing to see sense.

This further slight was in fact a hint

(I’m sitting here, I’m making a mint).

Just another pawn, when will it dawn

She’ll string you along ‘til she’s worn you down

One step forward, three steps lame

The pills she gives you, the toxic shame

No more than a procedure, your life for her game.

A further appointment, another slight,

This time she tells me to get from her sight.

The prescription pad, the pen, the suit

I’m devastated, where’s my spirit,

Career depressive, her success,

Nothing more and a good deal less

Well respected, backed by colleagues, all the pull,

Out of my league, they’re probably right, I keep taking them.

She passes the game counters across the table

You seize the gambit, tail bent, you lose

And leave, heading for the door

It’s all you’re able.

I’m patient, waiting, saving, avoiding and mad counting

Lurching from appointment to appointment

Not looking forward, always looking back

Taking the medication

And heading for the sack

Sometimes, there are mad pyjama ‘parties’ with my ward friends

Where it’s always time to go to bed

Can be up and down at all hours all night

Taking nips from the pill collection which is ‘housed’ in a tower (a ‘Free for All’)

I ask you, could this get any lower?

Next time I’m back it’s the start of summer

This time she’s prescribing with a light swish

Who can blame her, it’s getting warmer

High meds for high moods she writes with a flourish

Let’s double the dose, take you in if you like

To make the adjustment

To be on the safe side, (she’s not even close).

Her the wolf and me the sheep

All I have to do is bleat

I’m lucky this time if I get out

I grab the prescription, it’s all I’ve got.

When I get home later, having been ‘round the houses

With pieces of paper, from doctor to pharmacy to HSE

I take my lot to get some well-earned peace

After a days toil that was completely meaningless

That didn’t even include one single friendly face

I retreat home quickly, eagerly cracking open the foil

This is solitary pill-taking at its very worst

On which I rely. But taking them

Again, what a relief, I go numb

Before bed, I am arrested by my image in the mirror

Through a blizzard of paint, toothpaste, and talc powder

And it’s not just that the glass is cloudier, it must be something else

But I just don’t recognize myself

The separation is complete.

I’m the patient watching and waiting

Delaying, postponing, and disappearing

Relaying repeat scripts from location to location

Smoking is my other full-time occupation.

Sometimes I do go out

When other people can find me out

Saying “Keep taking the pills”, that’s me they slay

What do they know? , I often say,

How much do they know about the tranquillisers at bus stops

The Liths, the Zimms, the ATM, the shops,

The worry, the smoking and the personal attacks,

And all the hanging around the dispensary?

Nurse Ireland met me today, holding

Blue promises and shamrocks upon a tray

I’m charmed I’m sure how she greets me this way

Medicated Ireland, for that is her name.

Doctors, staff, all walking faster, on the crest

The patients slowed down, there for a rest

Subdued like zombies, they’ve nothing left.

Hiding, waiting, wiped out, deleted, defeated, invisible, sterilized, eradicated and procrastinating.

Saving themselves, exhausted from waiting while

Displaying bizarre behaviours of incarceration and from all the taking

Shouting, acting out and often shaking

Mutual diagnosing is the sport of every day

Guilt trips, guessing games and close monitoring

Enjoying the sickness

Narcissism to the Nth degree

Personal invasion, you high; you low?

The questions and the accurate guesses

‘F’ off and just ‘LEAVE me ALONE’.

Crippled by drugs, can’t rise to the effort

Within this regime which stunts your growth.

Hello again, you’re back. Try the latest sample

I got them at a conference, medical

Abroad. We were talking very high-level

So take this load; they should be ample

Clozapine B.D. Wait and see what these can do

I’ll see you when I get back, I have to go.

B.D. BIG DEAL It hit me right between the eyes

Instantly I saw through the dealers ‘diagnostic’ disguise.

These trips, the scripts, and the willful neglect, I wept

As soon as I realised and the penny dropped.

Fresh diagnosis, new script, I cried tears of frustration

More boredom and waiting , I just couldn’t take it.

In disbelief, (To make me stronger),

I saw through the ploy to keep me longer.

However, I didn’t flush these pills down the sink

From the first moment I began to think.

Not capitulating, but manipulating it now

I’m in on the game , I had it confirmed by the young man with the MIMS

The copy he robbed from Dr Simms

He said you might as well turn a profit, now that you’ve copped it.

I’m pimping the prescriptions, selling them on

Out on the boardwalk, in the sunshine

With the goosepimpled girls in their short skirts

Who put the cash the same place as their ‘Lillies’ and hash.

Each appointment carries a premium, we do the deal in the consultancy room

Now that I’m deaf to what the doctors say

I’ve more interest in what they put my way

Deaf, dumb, mute, cute, no more confessing

I’m only in it for what I can get.

I take it outdoors, glad being real,

Out dealing on the Millennium decking with the rest of them

The sums changing hands are bewildering

So good to be adding something to the kitty

Instead of enduring all that self-pity

Dozens of deals for thousands of pills I like it ‘cos it’s seedy

Just the way it should be, a score for a score

You seem needy I’ll go get you some more

About my condition I can keep them guessing

And as to the nature of my cynical profession

To be outside, ‘F’ing and blinding, the danger’s refreshing.

Pill swapping, pill combination and pill inflation

The degradation, as we’re all the same, ‘you might as well take some of mine’.

Back to the self-doubt, for this the pills can do naught

Doctor, what will happen if I give it all up?

The sky fall down, and the sea spill out

Finally Doctor, Let’s end this fling

I’m free to leave the jurisdiction

And I’m taking the ferry to do my own thing

This is just how it ended. You were wrong

And you’ve been having me on.

I was naive. We both knew it all along

Let’s share the blame, I’m moving on.

I’d felt I owed her an explanation out of a little respect

We’d been through so much It went just like such.

Even though it wasn’t fascinating

I kind of wanted A ‘Happy Ending’.

She didn’t try to stop me

Had the good grace to let me go. Be myself

With the stunning revelation of having looked for too much help.

Nothing will prepare you, when they come, for the tears

Dropping from eyelashes, the size of pears.

As soon as the penny drops, there’s no more pretending

And no more props.

Renee