A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

As I got up to leave him
and thanked him for his time,
he asked me for a favour;
my heart rate began to climb.
See, it’s not that I don’t want
to help a patient if I can,
it’s just this question may be loaded
when it comes from such a man.
He’s floridly psychotic;
a man of stated age,
a little bit unkempt,
but at least he would engage
(unlike some other patients
I’ve talked to on the ward
who circumvent your questions
and sit there looking bored).
His dental hygiene’s woeful.
His fingers are tar-stained.
He stirs tea with a twig that
from the garden he obtained.
He’s friendly and co-operative,
though guarded at the start.
His affect is reactive,
and he seems to be quite smart.
He describes his mood as anxious,
and I guess that you would too,
if you thought the other patients
had been sent to spy on you.
His thought form is tangential,
circumstantial at its best.
He says he’s saved the world before
in his ongoing quest.
He’s grandiose and arrogant,
with delusional perception.
He claims to write most movies
by some form of thought inception.
He denies hallucinations,
and I see no current evidence,
but every night via radio
he “talks to all his friends” –
Hilary and Obama,
and Alice Cooper too.
He’d be very influential
if what he says was true.
He isn’t suicidal:
evil forces are attacking
and he has to stay to fight them!
It’s insight that he’s lacking.
But I digress from telling you:
he asked me for a favour.
As I asked what it was, I felt
my confidence start to waver.
It’s just one small thing, he says,
please tell me I’m not mad.
I need an honest, tactful answer
without making him feel bad.
In truth, I said, you’ve told me
some things that can’t be true,
but you have said some things
that I must agree with too.
For example, you cannot have been
alive two thousand years,
and I don’t believe you’ve healed
the other patients that are here.
But you made a valid point
we’d all do well to heed:
sometimes a non-judgemental ear
is what people most need;
sometimes we just need someone
to take a little time
and offer us the gift
of a moment of their life.
He looked at me and smiled.
I guess what you mean, he said,
is that I’m not completely nuts,
just partly nuts instead.
I conceded him that point.
It’s just semantics after all.
Thank you, he said, you’ve made my day.
Phew, that was a close call!