Adolescent Haibun

 AH

GOwanada psychiatric center, 1986

I have to tell you sometimes I skated past the patients. The glint of barbed wire and spotlight only made me want to collect all the splits of light I could grab with my small hand. I have to tell you I was only twelve. I was an owl, or maybe a bowerbird drawn to metal, like the hot metal hoop on the court where the patients played pickup games behind barbed wire. I froze when my younger sister and I first skated past them. Pink plastic wheels, yellow pom-poms dangled from the necks of my white skates. I have to tell you, my parents told me not to go too far, don't be lulled by the pyrite and warm cream of their voices.

Don't even think about going to the barbed fence—the electricity will pop you back further than the thinnest branch of oak above you. I have to tell you, I went there more than once: I wanted to see

The whites of their eyes,

Their state-issued undershirts 

Damp. And not yet noon.