Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Morris Plains, NJ

A grey New Jersey morning
woke up topless in an ex-boyfriend’s bed
just to go to some abandoned asylum
Drove for twenty minutes and crouched
behind cars and bushes,
scampering to the busted deadbolt
although the security guards probably
didn’t care all that much
I was wearing a red hat
They could have seen me
if they wanted to

Ginsberg, let me tell you,
I have been to Greystone’s halls and they’re still
foetid, the paint is peeling,
the floors are puddles,
it’s empty mostly
I looked for your friends in the hydrotherapy tubs
just found debris and old moss
Climbed out of my skin
and into a glass box
no bottom  –  Cold,
barefoot,
posing for
flashbulbs,
goosebumps (they show up
on camera), flashbulbs,
crawled out ten pounds thinner
crawled back in
found five dozen white-glad rotators squeaking
along linoleum, wheels over the soft moss lurking underneath
squeak over able arms and legs, atrophied,
my magnetic knees collecting
nails and rust, flashbulbs,
goosebumps
glass
pamphlets
anything
my fingers
can wrap around

I laid out in the parking lot
a doorknob, a deer skull,
easter egg lithium pamphlets,
crack them open with my teeth, like a sailor,
like someone who has never been told no,
you’ll break
your teeth
that way.