“I can't remember anything.”
“But you are here now, and that's what counts.”

B looks at me with the kind of sorrow,
only a beloved can earn.
My stomach turns.
My teach clench.

“I guess,” I reply,
eyes dilated scanning the garage for balance.
A half burned cigarette
offers no solace.

“The question is, where have you been all this time?”

My heart trembles, and stumbles and scrapes up it's palms.
my heat seeking alarm,
buried
inside me
a ticking time bomb.
1.
3.
7.
9.
11.
13.
1.
3.
7.
9.
11.
13.
patterns in the chaos.

If
I get small enough
I can hide,
for a little while.
The measurement
of the space
between my steel bed
and the bath tub
goes on for miles.
The clock said its
3:43 am.
And there are
767 tiles
on the ceiling I have counted so far.

Is that my blood on the sheets?



The halogen light
curls into a
snake ready to strike
in the shadows
of this pale
pale
pale
night.

The tubes come out of
my body everywhere.
I don't want to look at them
but I feel them
and can't seem to
to care.
The stitches holding
my head together
comes in the eyes
of those who stare.

I am a special kind of monster these days.

There are many calculations,
and manipulations,
hallucinations,
to make
before this will be over.
Five years
in the hands of hell
moves much slower.

I know
never to be sure,
“cuz there ain't no cure!
for the angel of death
and his love for me.”

I am talking in my sleep again.

I stand on marble legs.
I look down
my hands are blue.
A stranger's hands
covered with tape
and sticky glue.
There is a giant nothingness
of all I held
true
A big jackknife
in the chest,
of everything I knew.
Lost in the forever of gray
never to find you. Or anyone else.

I am systematically shutting down.
One neuron at a time.
Three dreams at a time.
Five loves at a time.
Seven memories at a time.
Nine words at a time.
Eleven pills at a time.
Thirteen days at a time.
This is lockdown.
This is hell down.
This is not coming back the same down.

Is this death?
No, that would be to easy.

The bath tub is pea soup green
with a dull sheen,
and scratchy no slip strips,
I drop down anyway.
I turn on the water,
losing my grip on the spray.
my monitor is blinking,
thinking
the nurse is on her way
but I am
drifting
out
far
from
here
on
a
rip
tide.

To the sea shore
of salt and earth.
Where I played
as a child,
in the dirt.
In some other life.

I can't stay here for long,
A storm is coming.
Time to move on.
Time to start running.


She is curled up in a ball and I can't see her face. Please tell me she is not dead. Are those tubes wet? Is what is left of her hair wet? God, I hope she didn't get her stitches wet. What the hell are these people thinking? Must be the morphine. I don't think I can lift her alone. I am five minutes from the end of my shift. Why does this always happen to me?
“Sweetie, can you hear me? Can you get up?”

1.
3
7.
9.
11.
13.
“Well B. Not sure where I went, but I know when I left.”

12/07/2010

Author's Note: This poem is a work in progress and will be my most personal, long and honest work to date. This is based on the current recovery of my life from serious illness. Because of the nature of the illness, drug treatment, surgeries and so on, my memory has been severely effected. Some of these memories seem to be coming back in small patterns. Thus the patterns in the chaos statement and the use of prime number sequences and flow. Due to the nature of the material, illness can get a bit messy, I am leaving this as Explicit Material. Much Love - Lori

Posted on 12/07/2010
Copyright © 2024 Lori St. George