DEBRA GIRARD
EXORCIST
( "Exorcist" is actually a true story of a battle of wills between myself and a blowhard Child Psychiatrist, and the ultimate absurd outcome. The other "Institutional Poem" was a long tribute to a friend of my mother's who was unjustly thrown into the same institution called "Floating Rudderless in Ash"- this woman defied all the forces that tried to destroy her character... an amazing woman. )
Approaching thirteen- pottymouthed little pirate!
I had just learned to say “Fuck”- I had mastered the word “Shit” years before.
At her wit’s end, she took me to see the Doctor Who Works With Kids.
She met him while she was pink collaring it at the State Hospital.
Bellvue of the desert.
Because I was an angry little pottymouthed pirate.
Because I flunked out of the seventh grade.
Because I drew strange pictures-inspired by Egon Schiele
and psychedelic posters.
He sent me to nightmare summer school at the children’s ward,
the summer Judy Garland died.
A cluster of small pastel colored houses
that reeked of Lysol and rotten oranges
behind the hospital,
where tortured couches lined the meeting room.
Where I learned the word “cum”.
He tried hypnosis, and talk therapy peppered with homilies
“No One Will Like You, If You Don’t Like Your-SELF!”
He became my cheerleader.
I emerged bruised, but none the worse for wear and tear,
the message was finally clear- the lesson learned,
a baptism by aqua regia etched deep in my brain.
When my character, my character was “built up”
I slapped a bullygirl hard.
Thorazine and the strength of six counselors
eventually calmed the bullygirl’s fury.
He became my art critic
berating one of my child like attempts at surrealism.
He became a Pop Psychologist, publishing books
that helped us hang, hang loose.
I remained a pottymouthed little pirate.
Much later I found out that he,
he eventually found God’s light
and toppled the ethics of psychiatry
by performing an exorcism or two.
Lost his license. Satan had won this bout-
I wondered if the exorcised were also
pottymouthed little pirates…
June 13, 2011 at 10:59pm
