Challenging Poetry

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: we're all sane here

we’re sane here,
a fact documented
by the wealth of psychiatric
evaluation given to every
soul. our heads
have been shrunk
so many times that inkblots
are the graffiti
on our walls, and every room
boasts a couch
complete with neutral walls
and a recorded voice
asking us for our feelings.
we feel sane, of course.
the papers we keep
in our wallets—government issued
and sealed—say so,
and they wouldn’t lie.
not at all.

Author's Note ▶︎

This is actually a combination of two facts. First, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is pioneering a mental health initiative for it's citizens. I actually am in favor of that (despite the poem's tone) because mental health is one of the most important facets of health in general. Which leads me to fact the second: I am gifted in my family (extended) by an overabundance of psychiatrists. Three of my great uncles (brothers) were psychiatrists (only one is still living) and when I was younger, I used to sit listening to them diagnose each other over dessert (ah the memories) and conclude that by any objective measure they were all insane. Which they weren't, of course, but it makes me laugh and that's kind of why this poem did what it did.