In Your Own Words

Poetry is in your blood;
the vinyl floor is sticky with it,
An alphabet of pills
stuffed into your stomach:
Aspirin, Bedranol, Citalopram.
I stumble clumsily over words,
Pick my way between
blood-clotted sentences
entangled in clumps of matted hair
- Your beautiful hair -
Shaved off and scattered at my feet.
Your body is writhing,
Arched, electric with it,
Eyes rolling back to read verses
etched on the bathroom ceiling,
Before falling back
to slump beneath the sink.

Twentyfour hours later I visit
on a ward full of Ophelias,
Bedsides strewn with flowers,
Muttering mad rhymes.
You lie tiny and bald and shaking,
Covered in letters:
Pupils huge, gaping O's and
gashes stitched in row after row
of scribbled t's on your tiny arms.
A whole new vocabulary too:
Rescucitation, Dialysis, Psychiatrist.
Your mother is drawn and stiff,
Feigning capability,
We exchange awkward news
then listen as you whisper syllables,
Sore and purple like bruises:
'Fuck you, I didn't want to stay.'

Later I walk down the
long scented corridoors,
Stupid, soothed with anaesthetic,
Trailing my words behind me like a blanket.