Yesterday I swallowed a tiny glass capsule
much like that
I've been walking around in for years
amongst these picture people.
My palm clung to walls made sticky by the heat,
skin to pane,
I could not bear to let go.
I wanted to enjoy their stapler smiles
but the fog made it impossible to see.
I only called it what it was
when I breathed it into the glass.
It was always there.
I wished it would fill the whole thing,
wished I had a match,
so it would serve some purpose.
So my capsule becomes gray and troubling
against its paper background.
So they stop and stare,
Look at the girl in the bubble.
I think she's suffocating.
Like it's a revelation.
Like Gabriel himself hand-delivered
tiny glass pills for them to swallow.
Let me be their spectacle.
Let me be the object of their pity.
Let me be a one-woman-glass-capsule miniature show.
I'll be their tired metaphor.
I'll choke on shimmering shards so they can watch my blood color their roses.
I'll drink until I'm heavy with turpentine.
I will destroy myself.
I will make it clean.
Tiny glass capsule
in my wooden palm
who did you once hold?

I took that pill, and here were the symptoms:

In your eyes; I’d rather seem different, than distant—
still in the very distance, could you see me in a better light?

While coming to these unacquainted places;
meeting in between, hoping not to be as complacent.

As cutting ties, feels like cutting corners, still if I could
love someone only for a night, I’d adore the
memory of it, in that later morning.

A real tough pill to swallow.

I started using again
Needed distraction
Needed happiness
Needed the buzz
I started using again
Replaced my mind with a pill
One two three four
After that I lost the count
Cigarettes burn my lungs
I breath in and breath out
But I still suffocate
In my own despair

One pill
Panic attack stops
Two pills
Anxiety goes
Three pills
I am high up in the clouds
Four pills
Who am I?

I was expecting you to be
spying on me
in an attempt to talk
with the voice of a lost passenger
it seems you and I are always looking
for something
sounds that I can't let go
feelings you inspired on others
losing my patience
losing our tempers
you're all over me and it feels so good
as you are spilling a ghost
I won't complain
underneath a stained glass
all I can do is follow the path you created
with your brief smile

douse my beehive mind
in liquid amphetamines
to steady the blurry split screens
of multi-tabbed greyhound speed
barking madly at stalking shadows
fallen from my heels
jolting me out of my skin.

throw a rope ladder down
into the entrapment basement
resident stage to the passive aggressive
clinking cutlery orchestra
conducting butter knife cutting taunts
torturing my melted butter split aura.

hanging on to the edge of a chair
inside my chest where every breath
echoes the beat of a marching band
& trembling hands stand
on melting ice as they somersault
in the winter solstice
frozen from cavity vault to my face.
              
i look to see through sleeps eyes
where the mercury penny drops
under arrow pierced apples
in shade dripping with nights clarity
on a melted sea beneath
the flowing eastern wind
blowing the misty uncertainty to smithereens.

neuron explosions sketch constellations
out of flame infused
squeezed citrus peels
as sparks dance
where beasts of land, air & sea
collide in dotted starry symbols
drawing borders across synchronicity.

my rubber soles are worn thin
while stones fill the insides
but rubber-band wings stretched wide
bending tides & mountains appear as molehills
from weightless vapor heights dissolving the sky.

i seek the calm of crocodile waters
where i can stretch my legs
on fertile silt riverbeds
& soak in the golden sunshine smile
washing down in spectacular arrays
of scepter conjured waves.

open the gates to my airborne castle
where hope finds ****** interpretations
along the path to eternal symposiums
i'm lead to Jericho's jenga answers.

It was always far too quiet
And rarely did I talk
But the silence that persued me
Means I rattle when I walk.

Often, it becomes my haven
Where silence would else lay
My head is a deserted grave
The rattling keeps the silence at bay.

A few pills will make some noise
Too many makes a lot
But if I am filled all the way up
The rattling will stop.

everyone said it was a hard pill to swallow
so i held it at the back of my throat
contemplating
would i become better or worse for this

white wine
followed closely behind
making sure the pill found its way
to my bloodstream

they never told me
i would have to do this
again
and
again
until my body became numb
to the side effects

and even in the aftermath
after the side effects dissipated
i was told
to keep going

each gulp
becoming a reminder
of what never was
and what couldn't be

I often wonder who you would be
if you never got cancer in high school
and you didn’t get addicted to pain pills
—if your mom never left  
when you were in desperate need of a parent
and you got help instead of radio silence
from the people that were supposed to protect you

I often wonder who you would be
if you never tried ******* or molly
and you took your meds
instead of self medicating
—if your friends knew how to love you
in ways that didn’t include
encouraging your addiction

I often wonder who you would be
if you started going to therapy
and accepted help for the first time in your life
so you could see that none of this
has ever been your fault

I often wonder who you would be
if you never locked me out
and you opened up instead
—if you accepted that you can’t do this all alone
would you be the person I know you could be
will you ever heal or will your addiction
take your life like it took your mom
and everything else
that was supposed to protect you