I’m addicted, you tell me, but this
isn’t a trial or court of law, you say.
You offer me one prescription in the place of another
(try the blue pill instead of the red)
I’ve taken so many pills that I’ve forgotten all their brand names,
So speak generically,
As if this is the first time anyone has ever told me I’m addicted
that if I just come back to see you
in two weeks & give you fifty dollars,
You’ll be willing to work with me.
I watch Charlie Rose panels on mental illness, and hope the guests around the table are talking about me;
because I cannot rely upon
tumblr or the lyrics of jack antanoff or the texts of infrequent friends for survival
I cannot rely on thrice weekly sessions where my therapist attempts to provoke his own counter-transference rather than ask me what happened that day
I cannot depend upon my family tree, withering.
I must sow the soil with my own seedlings,
and wait until spring in the hope they will flower
even though I do not know how to work the land
I have been a space cadet for as long as I can remember
and you have been Richard Branson’s space elevator
attempting to tether me down,
without pulling me out of orbit
I cannot depend upon what you’d feed me:
a diet of pills & anti-pills
uppers & downers
steroids & antihistamines
stabilizers & antidepressants
I have seen more doctors
Worn more diagnoses
Swallowed more pills
Than I can remember
So must write poetry instead of prose
and still and all
I cannot find a way to sleep
that isn’t habit forming
I have become a
generic chemical combination of
pills dependent upon other pills
alleviating withdrawal symptoms from
pills whose names I cannot remember
their cumulative effects compounding
rather than dissolving
My night is an auto-tuned space-opera
unfulfilling and unforgiving
full of casual encounters of the queer unkind
You say this isn’t a trial,
but why do I feel so guilty
as if it had been me
who first handed myself
the tablets instead of love?
—perchance to sleep | @betterinthedarkblog © 2017
