In the mental health world, the word delusion, is a clinical term,
Like manic, or grandiose, behavior or mood disorder,
Break it down, these medical terms, are really labels
To try and classify our experiences, explain our moods with words.

The prescription the doctor writes is really a blueprint.
To direct and create, new routes in your thinking.
To create a new way, to show you proper living.
To stop serotonin, or try and regulate an imbalance,
Which is another word, another fallacy.
like if I go to Dunkin Donuts every day,
Do I have an imbalance without coffee?

Really the doctor is a fisherman, think about it for a second.
He puts his lines out there, and you bob around in the steel cold chair,
The lines Cold Steel Chair was a poem from a friend named Brendan.
Brendan wrote that poem to me long ago, but Brendan is
No longer here. No, Brendan disappeared.

Cause he bought in to his illness, the blueprint that the doctors made him.
And his “delusions” or grandiose thinking, the medication couldn’t save him.
So he tried holistic living, and then he slipped, and lost his footing.

And nothing the doctors did for him, really ever improved him.
So when I think about the fish, the ocean, or the tides movement.
I think of Brendan, in his cold steel chair, nodding his head feeling disillusioned,
Cause the doctors made him feel stupid, or tried to confuse him.
Tried to classify his experiences, label his moods, give him an illness.
They cast their lines and wrote their blueprint,
Labeled my friend, classified his thinking.
Wrote the prescription, sent him on his way,

And to this day, I miss him.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly.