The Brighton
Note: The Brighton asylum was located in Illinois USA. This piece is a story in Poetry about one of its patients.
1900, bleeding, freezing and kicks to the head,
Shock therapy this describes Brighton a home
For the insane; their treatment of patients until
They were dead.
It was Brighton’s’ policy for the insane, physical
Abuse, water torture, and lobotomies, convinced
It would eventually set the patients mind free.
There are those who believe that a spirit lives there
Still, caretakers thought she had run away. They
Found her lifeless body in 1979 incased in one of the
Walls when they demolished the building; they called
It an accident not a crime.
Cold, lifeless bones unclothed, how she had died no
One would ever know. Her name was on her dress
They say the shape of a woman can still be roaming the
Land where she died, at night a ghostly figure floats up
And down the road, many have heard her cry.
A haunting you might say, Brighton a real house of
Horrors where murder, suicide and brutality reigned while
Bodies frail and bloodstained were constrained. Torn down,
Yes, but its dark history remains, but the torture within should never
Be forgotten.
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The Last Chapter 
What a shocking (and shameful) piece of our history.
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Indeed, it should not be forgotten
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