Body under blanket; sick in mind.

Coughing tears into a delicate tissue

as fragile as the aching heart,

that rests heavily between two collapsing lungs.

Filled with gasped air and racing blood,

veins spread rapidly a mental illness.

Sick in head; trapped under illness,

confined to a bed by the shackles of the mind.

Depression weighs down the blood,

creates stone out of tissue,

turns air to lead and fails the lungs.

Love becomes ice that freezes the heart.

It’s a violent art that fails a heart:

Mental Illness.

Air no longer fulfills the desire of the lungs;

Knowledge and interest no longer ignite the mind.

Pull out another tissue

to stop the current of blood

pouring out of open wounds; blood--

From heart to wound, wound to heart;

A red tissue

contaminated by illness;

A sort of pain you no longer seem to mind,

no more than the natural inhale-exhale of your lungs.

Mother enters, says: “Child, breathe! Use your lungs

What is this blood?

Have you lost your mind?

Speak child, bless your heart!”

Taken by ambulance and by illness;

Mother picks up the red tissue.

Mother coughs tears into a delicate white tissue,

spreading diseased air from her lungs.

She too now has the illness.

Her child’s veins no longer race lively blood,

magical beats no longer dance from her heart,

electrical pulses, ideas, are now silent in her mind.

A trash bin of tissue papers drenched with tears of the mind-

Discard them all, exhale the poison from your lungs; allow for your heart

To rid itself from the illness flowing through your blood