For Kristie

O twilight child, starry-eyed wonderer of life and light,
who breathed deeply that same sterile air as I
in that long and empty corridor where the white coated man
slipped us our slow working, nightly dose of rat poison
and the mouth of she, the utterly insane, babbled incoherently of Jesus
and his mother Mary all night long.
Slapping gum like a tired old cow
mouthing fodder in between her razor teeth.
Your wild-eyed, barely there stare
enchanted me, as I had seen your version of madness
quite well before,
looking back at me in my looking glass at home,
when my face melted into a bloody pool while
trying desperately to apply my mascara.
While walking the halls of the madhouse,
this asylum bursting at the seams with the cracked,
crushed, shattered and hollow folk that came and left,
still bleeding to death on the white linoleum floors.
"Off to another asylum," some said. "Off to my home," said others.
And they released them back into the world as they slit their
wrists, while walking out the deadbolted door.
In and out in two days and it was enough time to meld our
souls together forever as sisters.
O twilight child, starry eyed wonderer of light and life,
sometimes, you are, my saving grace.