if I could walk

 

this steel bed –

mattress too thin

it chains me down

like these pipes in my arm

I suck on them

Need them

 

mmmmmmm…

my new friend

Keeping me just so

warm and comforted

in bed

with no need to talk.

 

But if I could walk

I would be in the company

of drunkards

down an alley

darker than my own heart

past the piss-soaked walls

the gravel wet with sweat

past the whores

faces dim in the amber streetlights

sucking on bitter cigarettes

towards the stinking river

 

I would look at them

but keep on walking

into the unseen,

holding and baiting

          my breath

arm-in-arm with a stranger.

 

Somehow I am not walking

but lay here instead, still

watching the minutes

tick

tick by

slowly.