Detox

Detox

Mark Coleman

  I just want to find someone to spend my life with. Someone to comfort me when a friend dies. I want what others have.
  It broke my heart to see you sitting on the floor. Head in your hands, crying. Couldn't really understand what happened. Except that you hate yourself for it.
  I just sat there and ate my shitty detox waffles. Trying to think of something to say. Tried to make small talk and failed. But for some reason out of all the open chairs, you chose the one right next to me.
  I caught your name, and that was about all. Asked a guy in my room what I should do with my dirty scrubs. He said that some people keep them or I could hang myself with them. He said that earlier he wanted to shoot himself.
  Told the staff on intake that he was suicidal. Another guy and I asked who the hell says that, and then I joked about the homicidal question.
   "Every time that I come in here. I want to kill all you, motherfuckers!" We had a good laugh. If you know where to look and your timing's not shit, you can have a few belly laughs here.
 Occasionally, someone smokes a cigarette in the shower. I did it myself. Last time, the stunt was pulled they looked in everyone's pockets and rooms for contraband. A madman got dragged to the psych for going for the girls' room with his cane.
  A young DUI kid told us that he had a beer in his bag. As he was getting discharged, he said that he was going to chug it and throw the can at the wall of the facility. An older man with brain damage said he realized he had a fifth of vodka in his bag and went to the bathroom and pounded it.
  Some of us look like boxers with the damage done by falling down on our faces. I asked a pretty Mexican if she had a boyfriend. She did. A boyfriend and three kids that she just wanted to get out and see. At night, they bring out the T.V. and some asshole picks out a garbage movie to watch.
  They had a Gore Vidal and Joyce Carol Oates, I came close to stealing. I came home to broken reading glasses, anyway. Several of us came here, just for walking down the street. The women are all pretty but heart broken. The majority of the men want to fill their souls with something more than this unbearable pain that comes with just having to get up in the morning. With very few exceptions, none of us are bad people.

Muzzle Climb

Muzzle Climb

Mark Coleman

   The delphiniums can grow as tall as they want. They're not going to hide anything. The caterpillar will always be distinguishable from the stalk of the weed.
  She stands rigid in sleepshirt and kitty heeled slingbacks. No bra. No panties. Just her underneath. Exquisite although askance.
  She has those lips you always want to press yours against. The hair you constantly want to run your fingers through. Wanted so badly to spend your life with her. Wanted to explain to her that everything would be alright. Even though, this would be a lie. Hear people speak about her only in terms of sex.
  Her sweat band discarded after tennis. A bikini on a banister back chair after a swim meet. Dangling there like shed skin.
  Your instructor just left you in the deep end. You thought you were going to drown. You feel that way now. A pool of obfuscation that mists its way into your eyes.
  The book case stares you down. The sofa swallows you. Looking for loose change in its cushions. Knowing there's none to be found.
  It was all just a college try, after all. You try to wish away the memories. Try to obliterate retention and reason. Sink slowly into ready made madness. The insanity where a different sort of angel lives.
  Sometimes, we descend to the attic and ascend to the cellar. Falling into blue skies. Rising into turbulent seas. The plane you know will never leave the tarmac. The oxygen masks that drop, regardless. A bird must have flown into the fuselage again. I think they must get sick of being that close to heaven.
  A crash is the same as a layover. Nine times out of ten. We smoke too many cigarettes and drink too many drinks in the lounge. There's an I that was buried with You. They're starting to stack the bodies because they've run out of room.
  The family plots no longer contain family members but just odd bits of consanguineous appendages. A distant cousin's head rests on the thighs of a stranger. Rape becomes a necessity of the tomb.
  Feeling like a Bolero painting, even though, you haven't eaten in days. Sitting on the floor with your whiskey. Staring at the wall. Trying to find some pattern there. There's nothing but scuff marks that seep into your heart.
  You'll never write the great American novel. Never write a short story that anyone will ever want to publish. You're relegated to obscurity. You are obsolete.
  Take a few Clorazepate. It helps, I suppose. But in such a small way that I might as well have left them in the bottle till I seized.
  I become less sure of myself everyday. Excoriating mirrors that only show how pale my life is compared to my dreams.