Doctor Dearest, when I ask you to drip sweetness into my veins do not tell me that life looks better with stuck-open eyes and *******. I want to feel my arms light up with the anticipation of release.
Do not prescribe me rest, I’ve had enough of that to make an infant cry out in envy. And anyway, my bed is stone and my blanket is fire spun into thread. Sleep does not tempt me unless it is guaranteed.
Do not tell me to eat or unfold your little pyramid, a stack of sins that weigh on me with the full force of an iron curse. Food does not welcome me into its yellow-walled home-- it senses desire and punishes me.
Do not pull a magic pill out of your hundred dollar hat and fold my fingers along its dusty edges because I will crush it under my weight and piece it back together with spittle-thread, the glue of a starver’s refusal.
Do not promise me that time heals pain when I’m not even an inch up this mountain. My feet cannot balance on footholds carved in mud, and my hands were stolen from a chest in my own ghost’s attic. They haven’t been used in this lifetime.
Doctor, Sir, do not tell me that I am sweet enough to tempt even the fullest stomachs and the tallest men. I know the taste of dirt because it sours my tongue and scrapes my throat. And I am tired, so tired of digesting Earth when I wasn’t meant to be fed.