The Other World

Screams echo eerily through the halls,

Mixing in with the senseless laughter,

The crashing thunder blocks it all out,

Lending her a moment of peace

Before once again the asylum’s song

Fills her mind and senses with horror.

When sleep finally overtakes her mind

She basks in sunlight and summers warmth;

She lays back in comforts ageless joys,

Over and over she declares that this is real.

Over and over she clings to this anew—

Always denying the horror of the other world.

Listlessly she wanders the bare hallways,

Always avoiding the other inmates,

Always avoiding any contact with people—

Touching them could prove this is real.

She can not allow such a thing to happen,

This place of horror can not be true.

Sometimes even waking she can see it,

With polished marble walls and floors.

Jeweled tapestries dazzle her eyes,

While the aroma of flowers is carried

In through the wide, unbarred, windows.

So surrounded it is easy to deny the other world.

Even when the weather is warm and fair

The asylum still seems so cold and dark.

The crashing waves far below the cliffs

Echo like unending thunder in her ears.

No matter the weather there is always wind—

Howling, crying, as it whips around the corners.

Ah, be in her mind the wind is a song,

Together with the waves they create peace.

In her mind there is still hope and cheer,

Her family is there, they will never leave.

There is no man who she must marry,

Life here is not like it is in the other world.

At night she stared out of her window

Willing her mind to forget where she is;

But for now the medicine holds firm,

She must see this horror filled reality.

Through the window she sees a raven land

On the bare branches of a distant dead tree.

Then in her mind she sees leaves bud,

And the barren land is brought to life.

Looking then around her bare room,

Color blooms with lost cherished comforts.

A maid comes in and softly takes her hand,

She goes with the maid; she is part of the other world.

She barely noticed where she was taken;

Not an eye did she blink when she was left

Sitting, strapped, into a hard metal chair.

Then her husband entered, yet she was silent.

He spoke with the doctor in hushed tones

About the need of surgery to keep her silent.

In her mind she saw only those she loved,

The man, her husband, was not allowed here.

The pain he’d caused, she refused to remember.

It was better to forget him altogether,

It was better to hide away in this safe haven,

It was better to forget the other world.

The man listened as the doctor explained

That the young woman would never speak.

Without the medicine she was lost in her mind

And surely would never again be a useful wife.

Whether here or if she were taken back home

She was now too simple to tend to herself.

Yet in her mind she laughed and danced freely.

She was again roaming in her father’s estates.

In her mind she was so innocent and full

Of promise and hope for what would be to come.

In her mind she desperately clung to this life—

Denying the abuse and beatings from the other world.