In Northampton, there is a hospital
on a hill
or at least there was.
My mother grew up
sledding down Hospital Hill
in the shadows
of the Northampton State Hospital
in days when winter
provided more snow
than it does these days.
The hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital
shut down sometime
in the late 1980’s
or early 1990’s
and the local homeless population
skyrocketed
and many former patients wound up
in-and-out of prison
after the doors shut
and they were forced out.
There were stories that my grandma told
about people being badly abused
and even killed
within those walls
back in the day.
The closets are filled
with skeletons,
she would say.
I went sledding down Hospital Hill as a kid,
though less frequently than my mother had.
During high school,
a few of us periodically broke into
the shuttered,
abandoned
state hospital
usually in the wintertime.
We would leave toboggans
at the top of the hill
just in case the cops showed up
and we needed an escape
or an alibi.
There was a fallout shelter in the basement
and paint peeling everywhere in the building.
Once, we found the skeletal remains
of a small animal
in the closet
of a large room
maybe a cat that someone,
maybe a former patient
had cooked.
This was all back
before September 11th 2001,
back when (white) kids could be kids
and get away
with breaking into
an abandoned government building
over a dozen times
for lack of anything else to do
in a small town.
I’m not sure
if anyone still sleds
down Hospital Hill
but I heard recently
that the old psychiatric hospital
was converted to expensive condos.
Certainly gutted,
with fresh coat of paint added
and the skeletal remains removed
from the closets.