A poem on incarceration by Jhilmil Breckenridge
If you stare out of a barred window across
A bleak garden some September morning
If the neem tree in the garden reminds you of home
Vast, old, timeless
If you remember playing under a neem tree in Allahabad
And you can almost hear the laughter of children as they play
In the heat of a sultry afternoon in June
And because the window is small and barred and cannot open
Because you want to breathe freedom
Because you want to shower without them watching
Because you silently swallow your screams
Because your mind is starting to get fuzzy
Because your tongue is starting to slur
Because you have started drooling
Because your fingers shake when you write
Because the words Ritalin Prozac Depakote Lithium
Have started sounding like poetry
Because you feel your resistance slowly dying
Because you start to say the words they want to hear
Because you know the glazed look in the eyes of others
Is in your eyes too
Because this confluence of muscle and bone is wasting
Because you sleep for hours
Because you now smile at your doctors
Because you scream when the ECT paraphernalia is wheeled in
Because no one cares
Because once you’re labeled, you will be forever
Because asylums were once freak shows
Because asylum is not what it means
You go back to staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Staring
Jhilmil Breckenridge is a poet, writer and mental health activist. She was illegally incarcerated twice in India. She is horrified by the mental health laws in India and would love to do what she can to make a change.
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