What seems to be the problem, officer?

People who don't like poetry have never taken their roommate to an emergency psych ward in Queens, come home to find they've locked themselves out of their bedrooms, and watched the sun rise from the couch in the living room and wondered if maybe this had happened to someone else, and if they have something useful to say about. People who do like poetry (and are also me) root their Robert Lowell out of the bookcase as soon the landlord jimmies the lock open and find that there have been a lot of useful things said about emergencies, psych wards, and sunrise from the couch of one's own home.

Two nights ago, my roommate told her ex she was going to kill herself and the police came to my house to get her. Twice. The first time they came, she wasn't there, and we talked about Jeopardy. The second time they came, it was two in the morning, and there were six of them, plus two firefighters, plus an ambulance, plus a gurney in the hallway of my building. A nice police officer put his hand on my arm and told me that I had to get shoes on my roommate, because if she wouldn't come willingly, they were going to cuff her and take her in by force. Normally, I'm opposed to armed strangers coming into my home and removing its residents by force. That night, I asked for five minutes to help her get dressed.

Because I am still myself in even the most challenging situations, I locked the door to my room when the police arrived. This action was concieved in the same spirit of most of my decisions - last minute panic. What, exactly, I thought I was going to do to get back into my bedroom when the police departed did not figure into my decision making process.

We rode to the hospital in the back of the ambulance. I was not carsick. I handed my roomate many, many tissues; this is my preferred technique for ministering to the sick, especially in situations when I cannot offer them a drink or a snack. We got to the hospital, an orderly took away her shoes, put her purse in a locker, and told me to leave. I took a cab home, couldn't get into my room, and watching Top Gear and the sunrise until I fell asleep in my clothes. I thought about calling into work, but the idea of not going into the office because I had locked all of my clean pants in a room I couldn't access proved to be too much for me.

She has since come home. We watched the dog show and ate Thai food. I don't know what she's going to do in terms of treatment - events of the day have led me to think that tonight might involve another ambulance ride. I am wiped out and indecisive. I have no idea what to do; if I should move out (tonight!), help take care of her (no man is an island!), or drink myself into unhelpfulness and go to bed (probable winner! mostly kidding! mostly!).

Shockingly, I've decided the best thing to do is write all this down. I forgot that I enjoyed this, and that there was a better place to be pithy than Facebook. Welcome back, me. Christ, I'm tired.