Glenside

The asylum is green dust. Not the green of fresh leaves, but the green of skies falling, the green of clouds opening, the green of hailstorms. Green dust rises but does not fall. Green dust floats in tormented corridors. Green dust touches saffron robes and indifferent coroners. Motes of green dust mingle with wafts of singed hair. Layers of green dust spread like encrusting coral on deep-water gates. Threads of green dust stitching yellow-buttoned madness. Green dust buzzing like phosphorescent bees over nightmare stew.

Green dust shadows on a moonless night concealing condemned geniuses. Shadows inside brown-buckled straightjackets. Disinfected shadows stretched over piss-stained gurney-scarred floors. Silent shadows seeking audiences. Screaming shadows cast upon dilapidated walls. Honey-coated electric-shadows seeping from shock-pad temples. Distorted shadows drip from slanted faces. Suicide-watch shadow. Bedframe shadow. Sighing-door shadow. Torn-sheet noose shadow. Swinging shadows of green dust and lithium.

Lithium rolling-doors and corner-less walls, save and deliver, sliding-windows and razor-sharp wolves. Lithium children, count and dispense, two-tablets three-times daily. Lithium snow, powder and shower, chemical straightjackets. Decision-making lithium. Double-vision lithium. Wasted-mind lithium. Manic-depressive lithium. Sedated-zombie lithium. Transcend the prison of lithium. Transcend the green dust and the shadows.

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Stevi-Lee Alver is an Australian writer and tattoo artist. She lives in the middle of Brazil with her wife. She loves bush walks and waterfalls but misses the ocean.