It’s fairly comfortable from here.

There’s a place to lay my head 

And rest my feet, leaden purple

And always tingling with cold.

Now I nurture it,

Like a mother toward a child –
Cloying and petulant,

It wheedles and moans,

Incorrigible. Blindly,

And against better judgement,

I sweep what little

Flaky resolve remains,
Littered 
on the cool linoleum.

And even as I gag
On the thick,

Metallic bit of

Danger (muscles atrophy, 

The flesh strung against bone)

Honesty is something I can

No longer afford.