I don’t know what will save me

And other poems

The following poems were written at different points of my life and subsequently edited and revised. The earliest is “Anecdote,” written in 2011, soon after finishing medical school in Pakistan. “Code Violet” and “Advice of an old-school psychiatrist to a young trainee as Foucault frowns from heaven” were written in 2013 while training in Qatar. “Psychosis” was written in 2014, soon after starting psychiatry residency in the US. “I don’t know what will save me” is the most recent, written earlier this year.

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I don’t know what will save me

I don’t know what will save me
But I’m betting on Adderall
I’m sixty and scattered
My son’s stimulant vigor slices through life
If I could just get a spark of that
My life will be less of a burden

I don’t know what will save me
But I’m hoping it’s Effexor
It allowed my mom to survive
The nightmare of her marriage
Cymbalta and Zoloft have helped me
But this can’t be as good as it gets?

I don’t know what will save me
But it won’t be Abilify 
I am the voice from the outer world 
And as soon as you declare my sanity 
I will gather what is broken
I will lead you to paradise 

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Psychosis

When I step on grass, 
         it makes me allergic to Haldol. 
I don’t see the dew 
        when I am not wearing glasses. 
I walk on the wrong colors 
        of rainbow.

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