Psychiatric Hospital – Written Tuesday 26th August 2025 (Aged 50)

Choppy Water

The past (as a collective)
feels like a…
Psychiatric hospital,
but the walls that surround it,
I notice,
appear to be low down,
because as I look,
I can see the psychiatric hospital
and I can peer in,
and I realise that if there are wards,
then the walls must be constructed of something,
a building material
that must be very thin.
I look back…
And then…
I look in…
There are so many people…
There are so many people I try to reach,
but they are always sat on apple carts of the past,
and I watch them as they eat a solitary peach.
And I think to myself,
the past (as a collective)
treads water,
and often sags,
and I feel it tug at my self-esteem
and try to pull me downwards.
And then
I look around at all these other people,
and they are in similar boats,
but I notice their smile
and how they create an aura of plain sailing,
even as choppy waters
threaten to engulf all their personal failings.

James Garratt – 26th August 2025

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https://theboybehindtheglasses.com/category/poems-and-writing-202