stillfugue

I.

Do not take my booze,

My meds, my relief.

I don’t live without.  Without is

Life in prison with deadly awareness.

I don’t want to be grumpy.

Don’t take my joy.

Don’t take my colors.

Don’t flatten my soul.

Don’t make humans ugly.

Don’t make me shake

In absolute fear.

Do not take my booze.

Don’t take my laugh.

Don’t stifle my speech.

Don’t interfere with the day.

Don’t make me like others.

Don’t steal my inspiration

For living, for surviving, for creating.

Do not take my booze.

Dirty tossed coasters,

Broken televisions,  mildewed baseboards.

Frustrated, cracked dashboards,

Slimy orange mush flying in frozen air,

Rolling cans, stuffing, crashing,

Hiding from families and hiding from love,

Sarcasm is pure love.

II.

My booze is gone.

I can sleep.

I can talk.

I can smile.

My prison has melted.

I can laugh – Yes,

My laugh is hardy.

I am free.

I am lovable.

Mind is free to work.

Won’t kill with my car.

I like people, humans again.

Stopped hating myself

So much, so violently, so desperately.

Obsessions leave, I breathe.

I am free.

Openness and mind amazed

By big possibilities.

Loving every single person,

Especially the most desperate.

The sun directs me

To a brand new life.

III.

My liquid medicine is gone, and

The doctors’ medicines are powerless.

My inspiration gets darker and darker.

I can’t leave bed.

I don’t want booze, I want death.

My loved ones tell me,

It’s one thing after another with you, dear boy.

My mind, the toughest prison, slays me open.

I need a new drug.

They don’t make a drug

For my kind.

Shock me, shock me, shock me.

Take me to the sick farm.

Give me a bed with crisp

Sheets and a window, clean floors.

Set me free

From the world.

Broken, fragile, and desperately

Needing love.

Dark, wet, wool blankets

Forcing me to freeze

And stare straight.

Open wounds, crawling and moving,

Immune to patching.

Sarcasm is murderous.

Pills and doctors’ poisons send me

Into the panic of solitude.

Solitude which may not be as bad

As frozen death

or the murderous, sharp

prison cells of booze.