Doctor, Tell Me

I am going to be. Here,
in a sticky womb,
a living room made for
madness; a sautéed fanciness.

The feast is being set,
just above the chandelier,
they call me by number,
my tattooed slumber calls.

White isn’t always padded
or strapped. Most likely
it only surrounds
the dark blue ring
around the sunburst I look at.

I think I am a painting.
Rembrandt is too gross, but
Picasso, he is enough mystery
to create me.
Half of me sprawls across the cold,
I wait for night-watch to
twist me back to form.

The other girl squats in the corner.
I smell feces and antifreeze.
Do I dream? Can I dissect the fumes of
the dead?
Her charred body crawls toward me,
she removes her teeth.
Everything glitters like a shadow.

Then, I am here. In the morning.
It isn’t the sun that tells me,
but the number, tattooed to
my skull.

Doctor, tell me, has Picasso gone home?

Monday Confession

It will be several days of confession.
I have starved myself.
I have been hard and violent.

Each doctor takes note, takes opinion,
takes my blood and stirs
it in his coffee.

It’s Monday. 9:30 A.M.
The sterile tile has been examined,
the hard carpet, despised!
I twist dismay into the carpet fiber
with one foot,
the other taps out
awkward silence.

Sunday was a long day of struggle.
I ate out of the palm of a man,
tugged at his whiskers and
kissed him.
He had a candlestick, long like a lady,
using its light to sort me out.
I had only borrowed trust,
I had to protect myself.

He became a smoky tantrum,
a raging death match forcing truth
out of my swollen mouth.
It was a Sunday of ruin.

Confession came, thick bees swarming
my tongue,
a blur of black and yellow before
I fell hard out of life.
I woke up to this Monday, a dream,
a foggy span of blasting conscience .

And this is just the start.