‘Puts Me to Work’ echoes through the house,
Cate Le Bon’s voice bouncing off the walls.
I can almost see it, storming down the hallway,
Barging out of the bathroom.

This floor is ******* freezing.

I can see my reflection in the shiny wood;
A circle of condensation that grows and shrinks
As I breathe in and out.

‘But I know that you’re there,
‘cause you’re making it hurt.’

Entire galaxies are swirling in the shaft of setting sunlight
Streaming through the broken blinds
At right angles, sharp and sudden.
Solar systems shift and spiral,
Exploding every
Time I take a breath.

A lake is forming by my chin.
I wonder if it is clear and wet
Like swimming,
Or white with froth and paste
Like winter.

I stop wondering when the shivering becomes me.

‘It puts me to work . . . puts me to work.
It puts me to work . . . it puts me to work.’

The song has been repeating for an hour now.
I used to really like the end.
Something like forty-five-minutes-ago.

I wonder if the battery will die soon.

I wonder not if I will die soon.
Preoccupied with galaxies and spirals and the little spot of condensation
Forming and unforming as I breathe.
With the frozen lake I feel cold enough to be skating across
In these baggy shorts and this tattered t-shirt
From a Nirvana show last century.  

The battery doesn’t die, and Cate Le Bon comes racing around the house again.

I close my eyes and sigh.

100 milligrams of flexeril
to relax my beating heart
until the muscle stops
flexing
beating
pumping.

100 milligrams of restoril
and maybe
finally
i can sleep.

maybe
i can finally sleep.

waking up has become such a chore
such an unpleasant experience
and if this doesn't stop it,
nothing will.

flexeril and restoril
and 45 milligrams
of methadone
because all i could score
was four and a half pills.

30 milligrams of phenagren
just to make sure
i can keep it all down.
i heard you could use
dramamine
but hey,
who wants to risk it?

i've taken my last chance.

15 milligrams of xanax
and if i can make it
for another hour or so
i won't even remember
what i've done.

this will end with a clean slate,
me on the floor
*******,
saying mother,
mother,
what the **** did i do?

if i can speak at all.

290 milligrams
to prove
this is not
a cry for help.

another newport, another bowl, another drink
to see me through.
another sedative to seperate
me from you.
this is how it's always been, i suppose it's safe to say
this is how it'll always be.
don't say you learned it from me . . .
we've watched t.v. since we could see.
since we could see.

more and more, i must admit,
i'm amazed
by our general lack of concern
for the mess we've made.
i was always led to believe
things would change.
now i'm just numb to the whole ******* thing . . .
is that so strange?
you're only blind
to what you elect
not to see,
so shut up and smile . . .
and call it happy.
happy.

we've sold our souls for this:
ignorant bliss.

don't mistake this for blame.
i'm just as guilty as you!
the question now is,
what the hell do we do?

i never knew that bliss
could taste so much like ****.

she stalks from room to room
talking of imminent doom
and the flowers in her hair
would be pretty if they dared
she covers with a sheet
every mirror that she meets
and it's not hard to see
this ain't got **** to do with me.


don't you think
if this was about
me and you
one of us would surely be
amused


and all the people that we hate
are the only ones
we know how
to imitate


i watch her storm all through the house
i'm as quiet
as a mouse
and i just can't help but think
if i could only sober up
we could be done with this
whole thing.

another day, another week, another month, another year,
another high, another low, another dream, another fear . . .
another song, another phrase . . . another day.

another day, another night, another dark, another light . . .
another shake, another sweat; another gasp, another breath.
another day.
another day.
another day.

it doesn't seem like it's been ten years . . .
an entire decade, washed out with so many tears, and i . . .
and i . . . and i
can't believe you were there and i was there and the way we saw the truth
lay itself bare, and i . . . and i
can't forget how it was, when i shake in the night,
and the dark
refuses to give way to the light,
and i shake,
and i sweat,
and i cry.

and the drugs haven't worked for months, and i am
losing my grip on all that i am,
and i don't expect anyone to understand,
but Everything that i Love
just Dies.

and i don't mean to sound harsh,
but i am . . .
so i do.
and i don't give a **** about the reasons that you
had for feeling the way that you did at the
time.
and i won't ask you to look me in the eye,
and i won't ask
if you shake and if you cry
and if you sweat,
and pray to ******* god that you don't
die
like i do.
like i do . . .
like i do . . .
like i do.

another day, another week, another month, another year,
they just pass by, another week, another year, another year.
another day, another day . . .
another day.

striving for simplicity
has starting seeming
quite similar to settling
for much, much less.
i suffer this stubborness
       like some plague;
some ***** scared of searching
for a saviour, or a cure,
unwilling to forgo the laws
that make him shout, 'impure!'
or 'unclean!' or 'run away,
******* run away!
i am death and his son hopeless,
and we've come out to play.'
an answer waiting underneath
every leaf and stone
and every molecule he breathes
on the wind when he's alone,
tickling his seeping wounds
and begging him to see . . .
i'm here, i'm here . . .
look here . . . see me.
but instead of living hopefully
looking for answers
that want to be seen,
just writhing in pain at the sting of the breeze,
and cursing and moaning
and spraying forth death
so stubborn and stupid with every breath
that's me, that's me . . .
that's me . . . that's me.
a *****'s disposition
on a long dead, lifeless heart
afraid of hoping for a change,
a cure, a fairy's pond
stubborn like a stone
so stupid and stubborn with every breath . . .
a glass of porter left behind on the bar,
flat and forgotten,
forsaken, weak, and wasted . . .
that's me, that's me . . .
that's me . . . that's me.
so stubborn and so selfish,
never reaching, never finding
the simplicity i supposedly
believed might save my life . . .
an excuse to surrender
and to squander and forsake
every opportunity
that would ever come my way
until my talents are just rusty tools
in the back of some toolshed
in some swamp in new new orleans
in the background of my head.
i have long since lived too many years
to believe i am owed more
and i have yet to do one single thing
that's been worth fighting for,
and sticking to and seeing through
and working at until
it pays off and releases me
from my hopeless, bankrupt will.
a ***** with a strange and stubborn
sense of salvation
my days are leaking right through my skin,
and dripping their decaying death
along a trail stretched out behind me . . .
a path that's leading nowhere,
made from nothing, with no one along its way . . .
potential in hunks littering both sides
in different stages of decay.
stubborn, and selfish,
but some will must still remain
in the corner of some toolshed
in the bog that is my brain.
a cleansing of the soul, or a
katrina of the mind
my freedom must be lurking somewhere,
for i am still alive.

now that territory outweighs tolerance,
we all just march in search of conquest,
for it is this that we were born to do.
no one questions this so called 'truth,'
we just read outdated books and call them proof.
for the right to destroy, we'll accept any view.
give me this and give me that
and put the rest up on a rack
on the off chance i run out of things to consume.
we're getting bloated and overfed
but that still doesn't leave any time to rest
because this isn't enough, and i need a bigger room.
so i'll just take yours and when i'm done, i'll take his,
and what i can't take, i'll drown in my **** . . .
no matter what, it will all be marked as mine.
and when the devil takes us up to show what we could have,
we'll say, 'we fooled you!  we took all we could nab.
you've got nothing to offer us, so get in the ******* line,
like everyone else we've got tagging along,
weeping and praying, singing spiritual songs,
and waiting for us to throw them a bone.'
because everyone knows territory outweighs tolerance . . .
it's easy to believe if you have no conscience,
and you're willing to spend your life in your mind, alone.
so that's what we do:  march about and consume
and destroy and defile and declare it as truth,
and ignore anything that points to something else.
because where ever we go there is never peace,
we just breed violence like a ******* disease
and pretend there is no such thing as a Self.
because like mitochondria, we're ensuring growth
and what's it to us if we leave dashed hopes
trailing behind in our wake?
get in the line, or lay down and die,
but whatever was yours now is called mine,
and i'm already looking for something else to take.