AMA (Against Medical Advice) in 4-Wheel Drive

By SARAH KNUTSON

Give it a rest you see
don’t pester me
stop getting off
on how much you
helping me

You ain’t never gonna trap
my sorry morass
if you just care-jacking me

--The street I’m on
don’t repeat so neat
you got to drive off road
to find my back woods

Do some tracking
Daniel Boone
follow the footprints
seek out the signs
telltale droppings
fragrance left behind
existential scents
that make sense
to the wild inhabitants
of my mind

Bits of skin
still fresh on branches
meadows matted down in patches
vacant forms
on crumpled grasses
thickets hiding second chances
stifled gasp
as breath catches
 subtle entries
shadowed dens
sentries raised
from gathered thatches
haunted by the wind

Thirty years of
memory swatches
feral imprints
prescient snatches
fierce & reckless
far from stale

--You sure you wanna risk
 your pretty tail
in the boondocks of my off-trail?

Cuz, there ain’t no safe place
to leave a trace
where I pace
This beast
don’t trample
within no lines
that you can define
in the least
by your sample

Let me give you a little tip
before we take this trip

This is the story
in my territory
around this incarceration
that you call ‘a hospitalization’:

Examination is defamation,
contamination of my situation
with professionally-encripted spamination
and a pathology of your creation

 -- The mythology
of your qualification
to boost your reputation
by predation
of my information

All co-signed, doubly-blind
in justification
of social condemnation
with medical authorization
for a diagnostic confabulation
lacking in empirical foundation

If you think I’m cynical
Let’s get clinical
There ain’t no paranoid
That can fill the void
of no detection
of connection

My reality
requires validity
if you sitting with me
you got to listen to me
If you got empathy
leave your smarts
& your degree
in the glass room
with my sanity
so we can both take stock
of the rocks

Mind your manners
treatment planners!
It’s not polite to stare
The hunt you’re on
with managed care
isn’t about my welfare
it isn’t about my needs and lacks
my poor insight, bad hygiene
low ambition,
want of skills or motivation

Ladies & gentlemen!
Shift your gaze
to the man behind
the mellow yellow haze
Follow the sound
of clinking coins
pick up the trail
turn left at the sign
for the neuroleptic cocktail
 --Right behind that you’ll find…

A ritual
that pays and pays
for all the rats who run the maze
--the bedfellows
who make the stuff
& sell the fluff
to the pros who sell the ills,
the ills that say we need the pills

So if you really you care
about my welfare
stop acting
like you’re only there
to serve my best interests

Give it a rest
Dare
to share the risk
at the edge of the abyss
where we both might miss
or find the ridge
that’s bridge enough
for both of us

Take your focus
off the psychiatric
hocus pocus

--Model some boundaries
with the psychobabble gobbledygook
This safari we’re on
isn’t about my big buck!

Get out of my truck!
It’s my trek
It’s my terrain
It’s my survival
at stake out here
This is my wilderness
& I want to steer -

I’m gonna drive
My Own Way
 To ALIVE!