When the pills start to work,
I dream while I’m awake.
I see the ceiling fan melt,
and turn into a monster,
with liquid gold skin and
swirling blades for teeth,
and I want to die,
to close my eyes so tight
even sobriety can’t pry them open.
I keep secrets. I cut a slit into
my sallow skin, a place to hide
all the suicide notes I’ve never written.
I don’t understand what
the thing above my bed wants from me.
I’ve never been good at this
being human, I have no knowledge to impart.
I just want the noise to stop, the growling.
I want the hairs on the back of my neck
to stop telling me something is there,
crouched in the space behind me
that I can’t see, waiting for me to fumble,
because I taste so much better
when I realize how much I have failed.