Grape Robitussen tastes like melted lollipop.
It sits by my bed, heroin melting in a spoon.
I want it. I want the grape. I want to sleep.
Already in school they have had us read books
where the junkie goes cold turkey, shakes and shivers
on a cot. I am an opium-eater
who swigs from the bottle, falls into swollen sleep.
I ride the HORSE. I have a MONKEY on my back.
Already I am the kind of child who should not
be allowed to read so much or late at night.
But now I am coughing like the consumptives
in my books, match-girls black from chimney dust,
and if I cough I cannot sleep; if I don’t sleep
I cannot dream of all I’m reading: bony fingers
that snap off and turn to candy, children who slip
down the bathtub drain, who are frozen in place
forever.
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