They Do Not Guess (About Mental Illness) They do not guess how early on In our tortured, wasted life-voyages The prayers must change, or come to damage, And burn the gold patients away; How soon those giddy pleading eyes begin To flit, but not see. Childishly, they Resist, blink, through kicking kinkered breaths Of time. Crows fly, berate. Night Each winter, hordes the past. A bright Pittance of healing screws slaps the insane Groan-gridded ground; and up from masks, Grey friendless maddened pupils flame, Washing true identity away. O, now, crawling in the gallows of An emptied, endless grave, blue laughs Star-sadden the eyries of a busted brain; Above these traps of misery, Only rectitude remains. Minds have transposed sin into Closed coops. Their aimless impropriety Has barely come to mean anything; And our most manic, utmost wish is What will survive us is purely dust. ©Aarchi Advani They Do Not Guess (About Mental Illness) They do not guess how early on In our tortured, wasted life-voyages The prayers must change, or come to damage, And burn the gold patients away; How soon those giddy pleading eyes begin To flit, but not see. Childishly, they