My thoughts are scattered and they spread out
like a deck of cards strewn about by the shaky hands
of a madman drug addict
who knows only physical demands
and embodies desire
but what do I want?
The cards do not contain clear pictures,
the spades, the hearts,
the kings, the queens
they jumble together
so that the letters and numbers are unintelligible and nonsensical

What do I want?
I ask myself draped over a chair my fingers laced through my hair
But the addict is ahead of me in that field,
his thoughts are clear,
his next fix is something he can envision clearly in his mind’s eye
and feel in his bones,
it sends shivers down his back

But what do I want?
I cannot envision it I cannot feel it I cannot pretend it is coursing through my veins
spreading through my cells and granting me release.
I long for something I have not experienced or felt.
Is this at all possible?

What do you want?
I want the words to come easily;
I want to have the analogies the metaphors the epiphanies
that are on the tip of my tongue and the edge of my brain,
in the palm of my hand.
I want to convey the moments
in the waiting line of a grocery store,
in an almost empty library late at night,
in a pool hall full of ghosts and their beers,

I want to articulate their tragic and beautiful coexistence in one fell swoop
the way a guillotine does

I want to stop
mangling my hair
and mutilating my body
utilizing bleach
and piercings
and needles
and chemicals
in an attempt to end indifference
in an attempt to pinpoint the shift I am in search of

I want him to call my name, to tell me
I was not just one of several,
I was not just someone that he will bring up one day to a friend,
“What was her name? Well, it does not matter.”
And continue with the conversation
dismissing my existence
as if I was a watercolor,
fading and nearly transparent,

my permanence dubious
diluted
and slowly running off the corners of the page,
falling

but maybe I am but a watercolor,
frantically gathering myself into small colored puddles on a wooden floor,
attempting to hold all my molecules as my droplets land,
keeping myself together,
waiting until someone soaks me up with a paper towel
and my being is absorbed into another entity that grasps onto me and I to it

So I wait,
and in the meantime the days bore me,
the routine is not literal but the essence is there
Repetition

What do I want?
What do I need?

I grow ever so weary of myself