My Mia

She lingers in my shadow,

My shadow, too large, too

ominous, too much,

That's me...

Entirely too much,

Too intense, too solipsistic,

needy, empty, hollow, shallow,

dark, strange, too much...

There is always too much of me...

But she dances in my shadow,

Limber arms and toothpick legs

flailing and spinning, swirling

like a mad, whirling dirvish,

she cackles like thunder in the

dark, she illuminates life,

makes me see...

Oh do I see...

The excess, the fat, the cellulite,

stretch marks, jiggly parts, the

places on my frame that should bend

inwards towards my spine

and not outwards towards the universe,

no, never outward...

I see them, try hard to starve them away,

make her proud, make her quiet, at least

while I sleep...she never lets me sleep...

One pill, two pill, three pill, four,

Wine, tequila, vodka, floor...

I wake up to amphetamines,

Go to sleep to benzodiazepines,

Phentermine, Ambien, Klonopin...

Cocaine, if I could...I would try it...once...

She never stays quiet, not for very long,

and even when she sits in the foyer of my

brain, silent for a moment, while I munch

pieces of chocolate or slurp alfredo,

she tssssk's at me like the ticking of an

old grandfather clock, soon, I know, she

is going to chime when the hands meet, pointing upwards...

Some things, you will never escape..she's one of them...