Was insanity just a matter of dropping the act?

Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness?

You could also "request" to be locked into the seclusion room. Not many people made that request. You had to "request" to get out too. A nurse would look through the chicken wire and decide if you were ready to come out. Somewhat like looking at a cake through the glass of the oven door.

It's one of the reasons I became a writer, to be able to smoke in peace.

I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.

Emptiness and boredom: what an understatement. What I felt was complete desolation. Desolation, despair, and depression. Isn't there some other way to look at this? After all, angst of these dimensions is a luxury item. You need to be well fed, clothes, and housed to have time for this much self-pity.

Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off abruptly.