something to wrap around the pills.

I feel it all half frozen and dripping
down the back of my throat

like soft serve ice cream
squeezing out the machine.

Who am I without the pills?
How about some cold turkey

tomorrow morning?  Let's meet
Ms. Hyde in the mirror,

behind the steering wheel,
over the silver lip of our laptop.

Maybe she'll rise like a sunflower.
Her little black incisors packed

tight like a meat tenderiser —
spider web strands of honey

barely sparkling from
her teeth like a backstory —

like connect-the-dots.
Have you seen this woman?

Where did I go and what did
I do with myself? I was seen last

at a doctor's office asking
for something to sand me down.

Please make me fit.
Please make me believable.

Tomorrow is far away
and today I'm still her

breaking down a half
sandwich with little rewrites.

They're in the mail room.
Everything is working.

Everything is expected.
I tell myself I'm not gagged

and hogtied in the boot of a car.
I'm not sunk in a sub-basement.

I am alive.
I am not screaming.