I envisioned walking on water
outside my window, it twinkled
and sparkled- dancing by the aid of the sun.
The sun was something I could be
if I tried hard enough, I could kiss it
and feel holy.

But life cannot be enjoyed
when there is a screen keeping you
from the parting splash.
Of course, there is work to be done.

Sunlight is inside me,
and I am warm.
Though, it burns
I ache to exist purposefully.

The becoming of the reflection
whose face I’ve never taken the time to know.

It shows the repetition of a woman that I fear.
The shadow calls me, it lives here.

The white noise of my thoughts
ran out of ways to make suicide plausible.

Illness, like an imprint on the brain
where serotonin is slow to the nervous system.

I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when my own maternal attitude
wiped away those tears.
I took the cocktail in the paper cup,
when poetry no longer screamed in my ears.