all substance, no style

I count down in the early hours, tick tick the eight hour wait slips between the doses, until finally she comes to me in the dawn. She carries a cardboard tray of needles and nirvana and I watch as she draws clear fluid up into a plastic vessel. Flush mixes with flesh as she clears the paths of my veins, preparing them, cleansing them. And now watch her, see her delicate fingers, her nimble motions as she pulls precious drops of clean wonder into the needle; gaze as she reconnects the tubes and plunges down; glaze as the liquid shoots through plastic pipes and a burning fire travels into pale yellowed arms. I wait, two maybe three seconds, and my vision splits apart; eyeballs lose eyeballs and the beds before me dance in multiplicity. My muscles visibly untense, my body falls down down down into the soft grey mattress and i feel my jaw slacken. i blink and my eyelids pound down, each shutting a thunderous drum in the hollow night. i gaze at the the slow slurred speech of the white cloth nurse as she turns out the light and offers words of comfort. i watch the walls breathe.