don’t run into the darkness,
your nightmares will only bleed
through the pages, into the fabric
of your desperately created new self.

ready to retch, they’ll ask, you’ll succumb
to the shot of sugar proffered to you
on a blackened spoon, signature
by the opposite hand, vacant lungs.

I know you’ll query the fingers,
cold, gaunt runes around your neck
but in time you’ll learn to love them,
their unspecific touch, the frosted tips.

with a drip of blue fizz they’ll put you
back where you came, mail you
capsules that vanish in the throat
but taste of your blood, of peppermint.