Hanging In A Jar

Portraits of patients at Bedlam, taken by Henry Hering.

There he is on the wall, trapped beneath the glass with just a couple of cabbies and a few dropouts for company. The sight of him! 2 years in the clink and he's nothing but an Adam's apple resting in some hair gel. 2 years had seemed exceptionally harsh for stealing a car, he was only 17 after all. They let him go. He's trouble. I heard he's not Catholic. He appears to be high. Someone in the store said that he just got out of St Cloud.  You're not to see him again, you hear me? St Cloud Reformatory But he could drive! They drove and drove and found themselves in South Dakota - they tried to marry but it didn't work out. So they carried on in secret, she double-dated and he triple dated but she didn't know that. Her little sister was pretty cool about it. He promised her driving lessons in his car and she swore not to say a word. And she didn't, for a while. He stopped showing up. It wasn't his fault, he was sick, tired, he slep...

A frosty sun. From the parade ground More and more soldiers keep coming. I am happy, this January noon. And my troubles are few. Here I remember each twig, And every silhouette. Raspberry light seeps Through the frosty white net. There was a house here, almost white,  And a sun porch. How many times my dead-white hand Held the bell pull. So many times...Soldiers, play on, And I will look for my house, I'll recognise it by its sloping roof, Its everlasting ivy. But someone has carried it off, Taken it to another town, Or torn from my memory forever The road that leads there. The sound of the bagpipe dies down, Snow flies, like cherry blossoms... And it's obvious nobody knows That the white house is gone. (A. Akhmatova)

Writer, actor, modest.

She grabbed clumps of wet sand and let the salt water cover her wrists. She is thinking about what she saw in piano class. She is hoping for a better dinner tonight. She is desperately trying to remain still. She lives until she's 76 but was missing her husband anyway. She's a talented artist. She dies too young of a cancerous growth in the neck. She gets in with the wrong crowd. She takes up needlework.