MENTAL HEALTH

One pill in the morning with breakfast. Orange juice

and oatmeal. Brown sugar melted on top. No coffee.

No cigarettes. One multivitamin with extra niacin for

stress relief, natural. One St. John’s Wort and a dab

of Valerian Root extract under the tongue. Hold it

for ten seconds and swallow it down. Leave the house

in the rhythmic rain. Two blocks waiting for the city

bus under the awning of M & H Gas. Two-dollar fare

for the next four hours. The crowded seats and broken

black umbrellas against the edge. You can ride all day

if you know the right driver. Half an Ativan under

the tongue for stress relief. Hold it until it dissolves.

Chew the powder from molar to molar. Swallow

the excess down. Ride the rain-soaked streets of fog.

The rising fog and drifting fog that slithers on the lake.

The parking lot fog and cemetery headstones, branches

of maples and swerving commuter cars finding their way

to the fastest lane. The folding doors open and people

continue to climb the lighted stairs. Stop after stop

and the plastic goulashes and shopping bags dripping

with rain. The man behind you selling a rock of crack

to a younger man, homeless. They shake the plastic

bag and all goes on again, normal, with real affection.

Weather and breakfast and Halloween costumes and

where the bus might stop next. Open your backpack

and take out a racquetball. Squeeze it between your

thighs and remember to count your breaths. Think of

your favorite places to hike. The mountains extending

beyond you forever in four different fields of cloud.

Decide to get off the bus and walk. The driver nods

and rain beats down and the uptown businessmen

shuffle beneath the bulbous roof of glass. All your steps

are washed away in the smallest shining flood. Walk

the blocks and count the squares and count the endless

passing cars. The lights are red and liquid gold and fog

continues to touch your legs and search for a way inside

your brain. Your ears, your open mouth, your nose.

It moves itself toward every hole. Open your backpack

and take out a Seroquel, morning and night, for distorted

thoughts and hallucinations. Hold the taste against your

tongue and count your breaths and close your eyes

and remember to watch the graceful gait of mule deer

crossing the ridge. Barely a year old, lonely together,

they move through paintbrush and dew-soaked heather

and alder and aspen and down through larches and gold-

tinted boulders to drink from Railroad Creek. You watch

the cars divide the fog. Water rolls between the lanes.

You cross the Kmart parking lot, the Lake Street bridge

and drowning lights. You count the weight of every

breath. You know it can’t go on like this. But here you

are. This is life. This is the way your day begins.