for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

Outside the window, the rain beats a battle hymn.
The sky is raging, throwing itself at the cold, lifeless ground.
We are caught in between, you and I, in between life and death.
The rain, so full of passion, against the frigid, icy world.
Fight! Win!
Tomorrow the ground will be soft and muddy, the remnants of grass visible for the first time in months.
Tomorrow the dawn will break upon victory.
Tonight, the battle rages on, and the thunder roars its insults at the apathetic cold, and the lightning strips the world of color and sears away the winter’s numbness.

Here I am again, it's 4pm.
Online searching "Ways to Combat Depression"
How did I get into the mess I'm in?
It's only 4pm.

The sun still filters through my window.
Cindy Whatshername says it raises serotonin.
How am I ever going to win?
It's...it's only 4pm.

All day long I felt the pressure,
Pounding like a hammer in my head.
Remind me how I'm not already dead?
It's only 4pm.

It's afternoon and the lists are full:
Vegetables, vitamins, a positive outlook.
But Cindy, I'm sorry, I can't buy your new book.
It's only 4 pm.

Once the sun has fled, it's true, it feels dark.
I never really appreciate its light.
But now it is a weapon in a fight.
Oh look, it's 4:02pm.

How early in the day can you regret it?
Waking up and going out at all.
These are just dumb ways to slow the fall.
And pass the time until it's later on.

Watch funny movies, do yoga, try a new sport.
Take supplements, read books, set up goals.
Get some sleep, try to have some fun, and you'll feel whole.
I've done all that. It's only 4 pm.

I don't need advice I've tried already,
I've done all this so many times before.
I don't want to feel defeated anymore.
God, it's only 4!

They say it's caused by anger,
Well, I've got that.
I've got plenty in my life I can be mad at.
I've got hours to explain.

They say you have to face what you've been hiding,
Well believe me, I have really tried.
And several times over again I've died.
And you know... it's only 4pm.

It's 4pm and here I am, alone
Watching a funny show, researching
"Ways to Combat Depression" and I'm searching.
I know someday my search will have its end.
But...I don't know how to do this,
And how am I going through this?
Isolated within memories I always miss.
Toes curling the at edges of a darkening abyss.
And it's too much to continue to dismiss.
And it's
And...it's....

It's only 4pm.

Why haven't you given up?
You're so different
Not like anyone else.
You never cease to amaze me,
But why?

Why do you love me?
When I have scars on my hips,
And on my wrists.
I am a constant burden
Why?

Write on me.
Scrawl a curly-lettered note.
Let it hate me, let it love me, but I want to feel it.
I want it all along my collarbones, and choking around my neck.
I want it twisting down my arms and pulling softly at my spine.
I want it caving in my stomach, I want it eating at my heart,
I want it sinking in beneath my skin,
I want it to reach the inside.
I want words of yours carved in my ribs,
So that when I gasp another breath,
They scrape along the underside of my flesh.
I want them to find my pulse, to grip it like a vice.
I want your sentiments racing through my blood like venom and cure,
I want your words wrapped around my lungs like gauze,
Curling through my mind like smoke.
I am so fragile.
I want you to write on me.
Tell me how you'll touch me again, break me again.
Make me stop.
Say how you'll hate me again, love me again...make it stop!
Write me eternal, fleeting,
Stop time.
Stop this.
Stop me.
Stop, oh, stop...
Please, write on me.

I had
drowned in
those ocean currents
they call eyes.

Slipped away,
not a word outspoken.
Strangled with glacier hands,
fingertips of salt and
thunder cottoning my
eardrums.

You wanted to save me,
but I could not tell you
over the salt eroding
my throat,

that you were the one drowning me.