On Being a Chimera
Q: What is the best part?
A: Being alive.
Q: What is the worst part?
A: Being alive.
Q: What is the worst part about being alive?
A: The fear.
Q; Of dying?
A: Yes. And
Q: And what?
A: Pain. Etcetera etcetera
Q: Can you say more about “etcetera”?
A. The sensor they give you to press for more morphine.
The horrors dropping you slurring your words.
Q: What surprised you?
A: When they told me my blood type is different.
Q: How so?
A. AB to O.
Q: Who gave you the O?
A. A twenty-year-old girl.
Q: Who are you now?
A: I’ll never know.
Nineteen
Nineteen is young
frat house stairwell
so packed a footprint
stamped into my roommate’s
white shirt.
But that is where you
found me, shoulders
emerging from the crowd
colored lights swirling
that’s how young.
Your eyes looked like mine.
But not when the pills started
the ones that you hated
the ones that made you puffy
and pale and
if we’re honest
not any nicer.
But I loved you
or I loved who you
had been and I wanted you
back.
