Seven Ways of Looking at My Psychiatric Medication
A Poem by Mae Fraser
after Wallace Stevens
1. what is salvation if not
a rainbow of pills?
what is a savior if not
five rainbows a day
until the world feels
a little bit more colorful?
2. I take them daily, only
the muscle memory
of putting a new drug
to my lips doesn’t
make it a habit –
it makes it a confession.
3. what will this pill or
that one or these two
reveal about the heaviness
upon my shoulders:
is it the world or
the wrongness i’ve ignored?
4. is the world actually this colorful?
5. it may make me
cockblock myself
but it sure beats being
fucked by the world.
6. am i still here or
just floating?
which pill will
bring the heaviness
back?
7. rainbow pills in
rainbow boxes
effective at keeping
the heaviness and the
light at bay – but is
the world the problem
or was it always just me?Mae Fraser (any pronouns) is a queer hopeless romantic poet from the New Hampshire seacoast. Their work has been published in PHIL Lit, The Argyle Literary Magazine, In Parentheses, among others. They received their BA in Creative Writing from Salem State University, where they received the Creativity Award for Creative Writing in 2022. Mae was also a runner up in the 2021 The Lyric Poetry Contest. When not writing, you can find them online @maeflowerreads or underneath their giant pile of unread books.
