I was twenty-one, and high and mighty.
I stomped to my psychiatrist, angry.
I took a seat, felt better, turned mellow.
I went in, happy as a child in snow.
Then I asked him for an arm wrestle,
got turned down. I began to whistle
and asked the man where he went to school
as if it mattered, where there were rules
and always someone aberrant to break them.
I had become much more interesting again.
I sang happy songs to a portrait, a windowsill.
He turfed me out, gave me water and a bitter pill
to swallow, like the diagnosis, a habit I had to keep.
Something I never had before, but needed, like sleep