64 000 individual foil wrapped pills.
shelf life .
consume
quickly.
PR monster machine,
efficient in execution.
knows good and evil.
Knows how to help
offers a hand
yet instinct says
understand the knives poised
in posterior
He will stab you in the back one day.
Isn’t shy to help, and yet to prosper
smith-kline was my valentine for a while
I loved him that much.
and then the rest just followed
quickly
swallow tongue
some have made a hollow
where the eyes used to be
some have saved within inches
and within the very breathe of me
at deaths beaten lull
a spoonfull.
64,000 in your lifetime
for pleasure, pain, for cabinet bedside
its good and bad
some stopped a genocide
should a cell have divided
upon meeting the seed of your man,
post pleasure-she took him every day
religiouly
she
fed the infants pram,
open mouthed for mothers measure
I am just a child.
and these chemicals
hunt a cunning fox of disease
pox
6 years old, picked at blotches
and penicillin helped
but addiction yelps
like a duckling, immature
odd sox
such was the draw of adolescent onset
nicotine
and Nicorette, I forget the damage to lungs
I watched them cut you open
just to see the sea of tar
64 000 pills
forever young, we get old
the elder told me
how to suck eggs
I recall the dreggs of a china bowl
when sick
I licked up the last remnants
to get high
-ran out of methadone
they sit us on the thrones of these pills
as we get old and wither
I stumble some days
I hold the hands of those that dither
down
because I love them
sad and spilling tears
whilst bursting blisters
of multi colours
-you attract me
and I like that.
they name you
glamorous, like a silver screen, siren
and I like that.
sophisticated
you make me dream
deeply, push me
deeply
a cushion lushly cradles
senses enabled once more
science saved me
extended years
prolong
We all belong to science these days
and we all share the same shrink-wrapped ways
of habit
flat pack double stack
cardboard backed insert
instruction leaflet side effect
pop out
drugs for living
ecstatic hugs for giving
to those we love
cancer has the colour of black
beta-blockers slow
and slack runs the river red to blue in veins
haemoglobin obtains the necessary oxy acetylene
and bubonic the flue
should I get better
ill carve the world with happiness
live life as the last day
every day
as they wheel me away optimistically
winning the battle
for now
and we pray to thin blood stemmed
heart attack
Panadol, opiates
viagra negotiates the canals
of female flesh
we stood to attention
yet under baited breathe
dare not mention
this reliance
on pills
this journey
of swallowing
injecting our concoctions
they created
this artery
this vessel
this table, slab and trestle
they lay us upon
when nothing left
nothing gone
just a withered frame
and the silicon watchdog
bleeps at bedside
its tempo fading fast
you covered me in elesto-plast
every pinpricked needle bruise
fading fast
mother, here comes the light
I shall now be replaced and turned
here is a curtain call
I like the ornate parlour hall!
all that stained glass!
-I was always atheistic
to the brash soundtrack
of the organ man
the chimney stacks are ash
I donate
this morning
to you
I donate
exhaled upon the black suited
the veiled assembly
well heeled or booted
who cares
I’m nothing whole anymore
as  parts of me landed
on flowers
I’m scattered
I rise up as chemicals cowered
in crevices of the crematorium
so released the cranium skull gone
soul released
they could have picked a better day
the blue sky of clarity
was missing, it rained
brought my ashes down
pieces of brass handles vaporised
along with silk linings and bone
nothing is perfect, nearly home heaven
the new generation rise
to consume it all again.
heres to your living
your 64,000 pills.