SCHIZOPHRENIA AT THE KITCHEN DOOR, 3AM By Patrick Wright The moon’s set three-quarter crescent, a sinking porthole in the sky’s hull. A clock ticks behind me; its ticks and tocks synchronise with the beat of my chest. The beat reminds me I’m flesh, embodied, as sunless bark outside beckons the soul to drift. I’m standing at the back door of the house. The kitchen’s the cold room behind me. It’s night. I’m alone. I’m awake. I’m not sure why. Years ago I once tried to sleep; nothing happened. As I wait here now, in bare feet, the air of outside rapes the threshold. Things flutter in. Wings on glass. And, since no voice calls me into being, I imagine feet planted on the bed of a frozen lake, there with torch exploring densely-weeded corridors. Eyes soon accustom themselves to the dark, and there across the garden I see what once was, transfigured: the wooded arch made for roses to grow, the trellis broken by years of gusts, storms, frosts with no repair forthcoming; and the face rippling out of the oak, once enchanted and benign, now gurns downturned, its mouth of tongue-bitten grief. I recall the place as it was before. It was summer. Life oozed from everything. All cuts healed with a kiss. And colours were far more vivid than they are today, stuck to everything - the grasses, flowers, pine tree house. The bumble bees and butterflies too – all emblems of life – were the gold of pyramids as they settled on petals. Now, in place of those riches, are the blacks, charcoal greys and standing stones, erected monoliths. They’re arranged in a circle – though for no God, no ritual. They sit stolid – guardians in their outdoor pavilion. I see them as sticks crack. And then they begin to take on human form; they become figures, faces, which shiftily glance my way with eyes of limestone unblinking. They refuse to move, say they’re entitled to this space. They’ve usurped me and time I had there as a child. And I’m seeing a bier laid on top. A prophetic vision. The doctors let me out. God knows why, only God knows. Since, even now, after pills and potions which do no good, when I gaze to the heavens, the moon is just a curve on a graph; the stars, pinholes through a plastic sheet. I tried to explain – to explain to them – but their noses were pressed too close to clipboards, forms. They gave me pills to caress like psalms. They sent me home – had my lips sewed shut.
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