The Dr. Said

I didn’t notice that I kept on taking

the drugs long after the pain became

manageable, Dr.’s words;

I was happy every night, lying on my back

in a bed in a house that wasn’t mine

because my split skin would open up

if I rolled over on my side. I took

the pills, and if I got to rocking seasick

I’d eat at least a Saltine, Dr.’s words;

and I lay back and guzzled water and

I was happy. I was happy. I

shook all over, like shock, like I could

vibrate right out of my skin through

the new incisions, through the scabs,

and make the world mine. I

shook, I said to the Dr.,

and shook until I brought the Saltines

back up to drop in the toilet

and the filmy bile that was the drug,

and I don’t know when I knew, but it was

probably when I said to the Dr.

no one could be so happy and so sick.

The little pills rattled out of the bottle and

sunk to the u-bend. I thought they must

dissolve, but I stared at them for a long time

wondering if I wanted them back, and they

never liquefied. They lay, those living rocks,

white against white, at the bottom of a shallow

lake I could still reach through, hands wet, pills wet but I

I could have them still, they said.

I still regret now and then how I let them

flush away, like the Dr. said