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Two poems


Tardive Dyskinesia

She spoke seven languages.

She spoke in tongues.

She spoke in neologisms.

She mumbled her words.

The rolling of her tongue was

more evident

the longer she took all those

psychiatric drugs.

The treatment seemed worse for her

than her symptoms.

Weening her off the medicine

did not stop her tongue

from the rolling and writhing

motions. She was

not the same ever again.

The voices remained.

Her Russian and Italian

words contained words

that did not make any sense

just like the French words.

I could understand her when

she spoke English

and Spanish. She spoke of a

fast train coffin lid.

One Day

Access to toys

that go boom

is a small reminder

that a small soul

one day

could end it all

in a fit of rage,

turn the cold world hot,

tear it all

to pieces

like unwanted mail

in the shredder.

 

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, born in Mexico, lives in Southern California, and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His first book of poems, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His other poetry books, broadsides, and chapbooks, have been published by Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, New American Imagist, New Polish Beat, Poet's Democracy, and Ten Pages Press (e-book).


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