I.

cold
against the floor,
mimicking the other
(with heads propped up on elbows
and eyes half closed with boredom)

your eyes so worn out
(eyelashes clumped. sticky like honey
and honey, make up is overrated)
and your lips are cracked
(every crevice is red and dry with blood)

dyed hair (brown shining purple.
you’re dying it this weekend.
and you can’t remember what color you were born with.)
falling across your baby cheeks.

you’re wasting away before me,
wanting to be everything you can never be
(and never should want to be anyway,
you said so yourself)
and you take these pills and you place
everything you find between your lips and inhale.

and you’re holding it all in
and waiting for the first stranger to spill your heart to
(and you’re spilling it, sweetheart, all over this hardwood floor, tears and blood all the same as your laughter echoes off it.)
waiting for the first light of an idea
waiting for the first virgin to come take this all away and birth you again.

II.

“i’m pathetic.” you say,
a ghost of a laugh as your eyes dart down.

down.

“what’s this?”

and the tables turn.

---

note: a continuation (for a lack of another word to call it) of “the psychiatrist”. they’re separate poems completely, but blood relatives to each other.

this is about how two sick people can help each other in a way no one else can. and one of my good friends.