Chemical restraint

He lies there - bony,

wasted - a shell of himself.

Confined in his shell -

a prison not of his making..

His listless eyes stare, hung in their sockets.

Chemical restraint was easier

for them, for the staff, 

as he became anxious

in his slow descent into Hell:

Alzheimer's then Dementia.

These strange arms, these people

pulling at him - his clothes, his arms..

He's trying to fight them off -

not understanding. 

They're trying to shower him

For convenience...

without constraint

they injected:

"Chemical Restraint".

Because its easier...

to force the arm of

a person reduced

to a vegetable,

for amenity...

into a shirt-sleeve.

The drugs caused him to suffer a stroke.

This is quite common

among the unknowing, unwilling

unchampioned recipients

of chemical restraint.

So much suffering he wears

for this administered convenience.

on his emaciated visage,

for the ease of the staff.

His only pleasure 

was to waft aimlessly

along the corridors

of the nursing home,

picking up things, fiddling, 

putting them down.

Underpaid and overworked -

the choice to drug patients

for ease of care

is the burden of guilt

they choose to wear.

How can they sleep?

His eyes on visits speak

a brief connection

and then gaze past as if

he want to leaves here,

this Earth, this horror - 

confined in his contorted body

in a bed, on wheels...

He lies locked

in the demented plaques of his mind...

He feels pain and fear and hunger

yet cannot speak his need.

Let him fly free in death,  

and leave this place he never chose,

never asked for.

Let him fly now to the next place,

or to the peaceful arms of oblivion -

anything better

than his semi-starved living Hell.

My father, how you suffer.

Your bed on wheels is the prison

that houses the prison

of your mind, your body.

You didn't ask for this.

How could you even speak?

No one should endure this daily hell

they inflicted upon you.

You - my father...

who made me,

and made me

a catapault to shoot at the birds that

ate the fruit on our trees.

Made halters for my horse,

constructed me a boat,

made fences, gates, repaired anything -

intricate metal, and works of leather -

kangaroo skin boots for winter,

a stringybark hut,

biltong hanging in the shade.

You, my father - an international rowing champion

reduced to two nappies a day because

that's all the allowance allowed 

by Governmnent Aged Care Facilities.

You who so tenderly stroked my back 

and spoke to me softly as a child, 

taught me the types of birds and trees 

and to listen to the bush.

You did not deserve this.

No-one deserves to be trapped first

in the cage of their mind 
and then in the cage of their body.

You pay daily for a convenience of administration.

I am sorry, and I cry for you, my father.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

My father in better times.