Light at the End of the Tunnel

"Waiting for my Clothes" by Leanne O'Sullivan is a poem that captures my attention because it confused me at first, and the reason the author is in the hospital is still a mystery to me. The author is in the hospital waiting for her turn to see a doctor, and she says, “The day the doctors and nurses are having their weekly patient interviews, I sit waiting my turn outside the office . . .” (1-2). At first I thought she just visiting the hospital for an appointment, but when I continued reading the poem I find out that she is wearing a hospital gown. Then I understood that she is in the hospital because she’s sick. But what kind of sickness does she have?

Then while reading the poem, the author mentions “They have taken everything that thought should be taken-my clothes, my books, my music . . .” (6-8). She uses the words “they thought should be taken” to reveal that she is in the hospital, but not a regular hospital. She is in a mental institution or rehab, and the doctors want to make her better, but for some reason it is necessary to take everything that she possesses in order to make her well. This confuses me because I thought that they took everything away from her because she may want to harm herself.

The doctors continue and tell her “Wait a few days, and if you’re good you can have your things back” (11-12). I then realized that she did something bad that she is not supposed to do, and the doctors are punishing her in order to change her behavior. The author continued and said, “taking my soul from between my ribs and leafing through the pages of my thoughts, as if they were reading my palms and my name beneath them like a confession” (17-18). This reveals that the doctor found something like a journal and started reading her secret life. She is very helpless and she could not take control over the situation against the doctors digging into her life.

She is very vulnerable and compares herself to a naked baby by saying, “I think of those doctors knowing me naked, holding me by my spine . . . the way [people] would hold a baby . . .” (14-16). The doctors find out something about her and she is very defensive and only the doctors have the decision in order to treat her and make her well.

Then the author continued the poem by saying, “owning this girl, claiming this world of blackness and lightness and death and birth” (21-23). She is living in a world, fighting against the bad things that have happened in her life in order to see light at the end of the tunnel. Her life is in the hands of the doctors the same way when she was born. She either lives or dies in the doctor’s hands.

She is in a mental institution or a rehabilitation facility, and I could not figure out what she is doing there. Could it be because she is doing drugs and she is killing her body, or does she have a deep problem with herself by denying the person she is and doing things that make her sick? At the end of the poem she says, “Like dreams, my clothes come out of their boxes” (32). Finally, she is cured or she accepts the life that she was previously living is not good for her. She understands and now can see “how the sun moves” (29). That means that she found the light at the end of the tunnel and she frees herself from the illness that she had.