A character based on many women i have met during my stays in psychiatric hospitals…

Muriel

Beyond her twenty years
She looked
With her duvet of fiery red curls
Coiling like delinquent serpents
On a Medusa inspired scalp
An artist could not etch so finely
The lines which lay as an insult
Upon a face which had weathered Hell
Eyes dancing like a ballerina
In a shit-filled pigsty
And she’s clutching a map full of no destinations
But she knows where she’s going
And there ain’t no angels
Strumming wistful tunes on golden harps

Big bones brawled beneath
Criss cross flesh
With the sorry scars of harming self
The sorry scars of hating self
The sorry scars of berating self
Pain fuelled tram lines
Hurtling to Hell
And she’s clutching a fist full of Disneyland dreams
But she knows where she’s going
And there ain’t no wise St Peter
Heralding her arrival at the pearly gates

A blank canvas once
Though now an impressionist’s masterpiece
With the purple hues
And the green and blue clues
And the red in slews of how’s yer father
Punctured pathology
Peddling pinpricks
Parading pangs of predilection
And she’s clutching a dream full of fairytale fantasies
But she knows where she’s going
And a utopian Jesus ain’t there
With his meek open arms and his forgiveness smiles

Eyes flecked with flashing blue
Sparkling in dreams
But in waking, like warm, flat champagne
Her mind mocking
At every heart-choked twist of fate
Nothing that
A puff of weed
A snort of coke
Best friend, the needle
Wouldn’t pleasantly anaesthetise
And she’s clutching a dream of a kilo of weed
But she knows where she’s going
And it ain’t no fluffy clouded heaven

And she’s clutching a dream of a better life
But she knows where she’s going
And it ain’t home

©2020 Sarah Drury