Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!

Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keeping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour *****.
I'm on a diet from death.

Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!

My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.

Yes
I try
to **** myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupatin.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.

It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on; my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.

What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum-
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.

I wanted her to live. I wanted to escape reality with her. To go somewhere peaceful. To find solace outside of the usual myriad of sounds and sights.
I wanted to take those little pills and find freedom like I always did, and so did she. So did she. So did she.
But there is no freedom, only a lack of personal imprisonment. It is ironic that our vision of "freedom" was enough to **** us. Poison. Pills. Little white pills. And a bottle of liquor to wash them down. To drown them.
So together we "escaped" reality's "prison" into the vast expanses of our hallucinations.
One more. Last one. Promise. **** that doubt and replace it with a little white pill.
Take a swig. Take a gulp. Take another. Let's make this crazy.
One more pill. Last one. I swear. Laugh with me. Drink with me.
Laugh with me.
Hey, hey, it will be fine, we're done. We're done. We're done so just relax. Float and fly, feel that high. Lay down and rest.
We should have stopped earlier.
We should have stopped earlier.
You know, we should have stopped earlier.
I am sorry. My bad.

So later comes and goes. She sits on the porch, smoking a cigarette. Smiles, all smiles. She is high, but she operates well.
I light a cigarette of my own.
I breathe in the smoke, let it coat my lungs. Watch it disappear as I exhale. She says something funny, and I laugh. She laughs, I laugh. It's hilarious.
She lives.
She lives.
She lives.
Unfortunately, that is a false reality. I give you the fake version to staunch the bleeding of insecurities and emotional detriment.
You see, I have mislead you. Fake. Fake. So fake, and how I wish it were not.
She never smoked that last cigarette. I guess to her, life was unimportant. Worthless. She was not seeking attention this time. She intentionally overdosed. She convulsed and died in front of me. I watched her swallow white after white and I didn't stop her. Her small framed body of innocence turned into an animal. Neglected, starved of love.
She is dead.
She is dead.
She is dead.
She will never exist beyond my memories. Beyond my dreams. Beyond her phantom visits to my vision. I am being followed. Stalked. Haunted. Chased. Hunted for a guilt trip.
Later, it's blade to flesh. Bottle to lips. Bleeding, regretting, wishing, screaming.
Anger, self pity, despair, depression, descent.
Cornered, frightened, spiraling into madness.
Welcome. It is with great pleasure that I invite you into my life.

You said
The most brilliant thing
You said it was
Like a heart surgery
But he was only a
Surgeon in training
And had neglected to
Mention beforehand
That it was only
Exploratory cardiac surgery;
And it was just for his
Simmering curiosity
(He couldn't have carried
Out a simple angioplasty?)
That he cut the aorta
That's what you said
And his curiosity subsided;
And he left as you bled.

If I survive the next few years, I may wish I'd written more about this time. My self is certainly transforming, but it's such a minimal bother to document it. It's 7:10 am. I worked at the bar until about one. Bill came by unexpectedly, and I went to his house and bought twenty grams for five hundred, as well as fifty worth of **** for Gillian. I suppose I've been high since about 11 o'clock.

John says that Bill is certainly the most intelligent man he's ever met. I used to feel that way about people. I spent the rest of the night at the bar, and then at the couch, talking to Sarah and Liz. Liz's last name is Oliphant. Sarah is Croatian. Liz is prettier. I would like to kiss either of them.

This **** may be better than last time, I'm not sure. As usual, as is whenever I get high, everyone leaves me in the early morning. It was around five this time. Maybe five thirty. As usual I thought to watch TV but Andrea looked so comfortable curled up on the couch in reception and I hadn't the heart to bother her. I learned a new word today: gallow, I believe it was... meaning to frighten. Or gallowed, meaning to be very afraid.

As is not usual, this time after I got in bed I did another line. Two in fact. And the largest I'd done all night. Because oddly this is the first time in the last month that I've stayed up all night without having anywhere to be, or otherwise any obligations the next day. I was going to go to the markets and buy pants. But I suppose a day in bed will justly stall that need for another turn at least.

And it had been a while. Actually I can't even remember when. The last time I was high by myself, and not overly drunk, and able to just stare up at the bunkbed slats supporting the German or French or Dutch fellow now above me and feel the unmoderated effect of the dear drug itself as she works through me. I know I'll regret this. I always regret it. But I was regretting it already and so to stall the regret and stare upwards for a few hours, treating myself to a little selfish time, seemed not the lowest of sins.

And I work at four. Four to eight thirty. So even if I don't sleep a wink and even if I continue to defy conscience and maybe do the one more line thing again, I can still power through. Can still sit leeward on the barstool and listen to 90's alt rock hits and putter through the motions of making it past eight. I can do that. And I can spend 30 minutes in this exaltation and then stare listlessly at the mattress above me and all its cartoon moons and stars while I debate the uselessness of my life and all the strings I've severed when I came here to drown.

Because this is a true story. It doesn't wrap up, or nicely. And there's no twist, but ongoing turns I guess. I'm a newborn, dripping with womb in a way and without even language or very many clothes: I feel much like one indeed. And I tried to buy a phone card today because it's something I need but the man told me to go somewhere else, gave good directions, and I didn't really understand. Likewise it seems will fail my dream for today to get out of this room, and buy new pants.

I can accept my grandfather dying. Every time I've seen him I've said goodbye. And he in his humble way, or maybe faith, always hints at see you soon. My grandmother sure. If anything somewhere maybe I expected the grief would take her. Or afterwards the dire space left between caring for her husband's ailing pains. But I always thought I'd know well before my mother would go. And now won't. And honestly never considered but now dramatically realize: I'll never be an uncle to my brothers' sons. Never see my sister find her place. Never see Brandy become the quiet dark eyed schoolteacher she is in my dreams. And also she will die and I won't see that, either. Not even anyone will call on the phone.

So I start with, "if I survive the next few years" because regardless those years will mean loss. Either loss of those loved, or more likely loss of that complex potential of mind... that once made space to love them. Or maybe better lost the own bitter instrument. And I say it all without condolence because each those ways feel, to me, tragic. Each way feels to me like something bright once in the world, that had to perish. I go forth with some sadness into the dark.

So here I am sexually desiring this woman, my natural habitat begs to be pleased
but my bit of conscious is telling me to stop ..
" Its my nature," I think immediately;  trying to avoid guilt

I pleased myself, I ***** this woman
I felt passion burning in my gut
I enjoyed seeing her facials expressing all the pain
It was all so very lovely
And I wont go to hell cause there is no sin.

Of long an aspiration, secret, that rosaries
don't quench, unexpressed, wells of old,
that anguish burning the deserts, seeking
in austerities and exegeses, an assurance
in tablets and tabernacles, and mourning
the star shooting empty in the sky at night:

a love protects vast, even when what Is
is not this that we worship, and descends
grace, ordinary so to seem obscure, that
wisdom from far must fathom its depths.

Refuse we to believe so, that say who our
father is divine, that so are we too divine.

That which we seek enduring past our
graves, holding dear in our fists clenched,
through torments and tempests and
tenements and temperaments, can
smile at us too as a babe in a manger,

that the King we expect who, to deliver
us from affliction, can a simpleton be,
a Tekton among us: that the Levi and
the Cohen, are risen too amongst us:

and to love, no birth high nor needed is
the learning in law, but to feel as show
those sisters with the heart, who anoint
him in myrrh and in tears, his feet wash.

I do remember vividly
The four a.m. conversations,
Feelings explained implicitly,
Plans made without obligations.

Toes dig into the rocks and sand
As we gaze up at the bright stars.
Nothing about that night was planned
Though it left us with unseen scars.

I remember the excitement
Of my phone lighting up the night
With your sweet words of enticement.
The fire in me would ignite.

And our flame was a bonfire
That lit up the world for miles
At once our warmth and our pyre.
We quickly burned with our smiles.