A tumbler of bourbon, some pills.
Beethoven in the background.
You are out somewhere.
The clock is driving itself insane,
going round in circles.
Two more pills, another glass.
A man is yelling on the street—
I can’t understand what is happening.
A tumbler of bourbon, some more pills.
There is blackness so engrossing
I feel there is no way back.
There are strange men yelling in the vastness
of our living room.
There is a snake in my throat
pumping black venom.
My head over the bathtub
vomiting the venom out.
There are strange men yelling
about the hospital, there is a tug of war
between you and me and the strange men yelling—
something about their jobs and liability.
There is silence.
There is glass over the floor.
You are walking me around the vastness of our living room,
tenderly.
I can’t understand what is happening.
You are there, trying to understand
what I myself can’t comprehend,
tenderly.
There is the tiger beating
out from the centre of my chest.
It beats and beats and will not stop.
The clock is driving itself insane,
going round in circles
and despair is a lesson in needlework,
a black-stitched pattern,
endlessly weaving both of us into it.