Self-portrait with sleeping pills

See how that blister pack of sleeping pills

is shuttered away into an envelope

folded into your heart

out of sight, in the mind’s atelier

conjuring neon hieroglyphs

not spelling out monsters, but sculpting 

bejeweled soldiers. One by one, they stumble

under the impossible weight of skyscrapers.

The lotus crypt is cruel like that

to the Bodhi tree

who only knows of garden fairies

yet, I still hold out the irrational hope

that one day, the sapling 

in the lone oyster might blossom

over guiltless seafoam.

midnight landslides, unswerving deers—

this is how I come apart

slowly, while a snail ascends

on the skyward ladder, bound

for void pastures where irises do not grow

& walking in the waking woods 

is the only regret I leave behind

I will look you in the eye

when the river stops weaving itself

around desolation. then,

may fantasies of frozen silence be taken

as a relinquishment of daylight

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Cover Photo by Anfisa Eremina.