Sleepmonger,
deathmonger,
with capsules in my palms each night,
eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles
I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey.
I'm the queen of this condition.
I'm an expert on making the trip
and now they say I'm an addict.
Now they ask why.
WHY!
Don't they know that I promised to die!
I'm keping in practice.
I'm merely staying in shape.
The pills are a mother, but better,
every color and as good as sour balls.
I'm on a diet from death.
Yes, I admit
it has gotten to be a bit of a habit-
blows eight at a time, socked in the eye,
hauled away by the pink, the orange,
the green and the white goodnights.
I'm becoming something of a chemical
mixture.
that's it!
My supply
of tablets
has got to last for years and years.
I like them more than I like me.
It's a kind of marriage.
It's a kind of war where I plant bombs inside
of myself.
Yes
I try
to kill myself in small amounts,
an innocuous occupatin.
Actually I'm hung up on it.
But remember I don't make too much noise.
And frankly no one has to lug me out
and I don't stand there in my winding sheet.
I'm a little buttercup in my yellow nightie
eating my eight loaves in a row
and in a certain order as in
the laying on of hands
or the black sacrament.
It's a ceremony
but like any other sport
it's full of rules.
It's like a musical tennis match where
my mouth keeps catching the ball.
Then I lie on; my altar
elevated by the eight chemical kisses.
What a lay me down this is
with two pink, two orange,
two green, two white goodnights.
Fee-fi-fo-fum-
Now I'm borrowed.
Now I'm numb.
Leave a guest comment (subject to review)
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
-
Anne Sexton incorporates many metaphors to describe pills and an additive relationship to them. In doing so, pills and common settings are associated with one another. This emphasizes the causality in which the drug user possesses with their addiction, making the addiction appear commonplace. To feel, as a reader, that the addiction never subsides, puts me in the addicts’ shoes. Kudos to Anne Sexton for crafting a poem to do such a thing.
-
'Two white goodnights...' I have never in all my years of reading and studying poetry found a more ingenious way to describe pills. In this piece, Sexton shows just how brilliant she is, balancing insanity and a wry sense of humor like Chinese gymnists twirling delicate china plates on a thin stick. Her imagery is unsurprassed, exquisite in both meaning and expression, her delivery sublime and shining like a brand new razor just before it mates with scented flesh. In the end, although she remains numb, it is impossible for her readers to be so...
-
I see the addiction within...
but more than this...
I see the pain
the loneliness
in a situation that one has fallen into
but can't get out..
so they settle for the price...
death itself.
Bill -
Great poem addiction is a sad thing. This is written very well. Melody
-
Addiction, changes everything about one, until they no longer who they were before.
-
Addiction,an
y addiction changes the makeup of that person...eno ugh said in this poem... ~CWM~ -
BRILLIANCE
Adding your comment:
1 - 7 of 7
