Posted by Atticus on July 29, 2004, at 11:14:06
Tyrannosaurus Meds, 1997
Six tons of angry super-predator
Hurl themselves
At full speed
Down five flights
Of apartment stairs,
Clawed three-toed feet
Splintering the worn wooden steps,
Twelve-inch teeth gnashing
At imagined foes
And tearing chunks
From the greasy
Graffiti-covered plaster
That clings to the walls
By sheer force of habit.It thunders
Into the lobby
With glittering red-rimmed
Eyes
As cold and hard and indifferent
As granite, but,
Incongruously,
The color
Of a pale blue spring sky.
Battle-scarred hide, dark as black leather,
Stretches across its back.
It surveys the shimmering promise
Of the nightscape
Beyond the door,
Then bursts from
Its lair
Onto the sidewalk
To hunt.Pain and fury
Drive it forward.
Pedestrians swerve abruptly
To avoid
Any contact
With the charging
Beast.
Its reptilian brain
Roils with words,
Hated words
That fuel its rampage.
Nonsense words
That sound
Like they were penned
By Dr. Seuss.
Paxil
Zoloft
Prozac
Xanax
Lorax.
All have failed
To stop
The creature's
Gruesome mutation
From man to monster,
From lover to stranger,
From friend to foe.Blasting into McGinty's
Liquor store,
It snatches
A bottle
Of Jack Daniels
From a shelf
Without pausing in
Its ominous advance
Toward the counter,
Slapping a bill
Onto the surface,
Its nails clacking
On the Lucite,
Before turning
And stalking out
Without waiting
For change.It's heading for
The little park
Over the FDR Drive
To snarl and roar
In accompaniment
To the herd of traffic
Racing relentlessly past
Below.
The thing
Dumps half a bottle
Of Xanax
Into
Its steaming gullet,
Washing the pills down
With the whiskey,
Pausing,
Then wolfing
Down the rest
Of the pharmacological
Carcass as well.
It chugs the booze,
Pacing,
The spikes of hair
Crowning its head
Tingling,
Feeling
Like defensive spines
Against anticipated attackers.The animal sways,
Seeks the solid support
Of a tree trunk,
Calming,
The trios of bony sickles
On each of its feet
Blurring together
Into leather-covered
Steel-toed boots.It thinks of its wife, of Alyssa, now,
Her eyes rheumy
With tears
And exhaustion,
Curled up
In a red beanbag chair
Held together
By silvery strips
Of duct tape,
And it wishes
She were as easy
To repair.
This can't go on,
The tyrannosaur muses,
I'm killing both of us,
It has to stop.The beast hurls the liquor bottle
Against a wooden park bench,
Hearing it shatter
With a satisfying medley
Of exploding glass
And splashing whiskey.
The same bench
Where it and Alyssa
Used to sit
And read
The Sunday Times,
Passing pieces
Back and forth,
And chasing stray pages
Snatched
By the winds
That come
Off the East River
Before weighting
The restless newsprint
With ragged chunks
Of concrete
Collected from the edges
Of the crumbling block
Into which
The bench is anchored.The reptile regards
The jagged glass edge
Ringing the broken bottle's neck,
Dimly sensing a solution
To everything
From within
The primordial soup
Of benzos and liquor
That further fogs
A brain
Already awash
In a biochemical miasma
It doesn't comprehend."What's happening to me?"
It croaks sibilantly,
Holding the tubular shard
In its right hand
And turning it slowly, slowly
In the dim and fluttering light
Of a lamp post
That seems as worn
And battered
As the dinosaur itself.A thought rises
Like the first wisp
Of smoke
From a fire,
Finding shape
In a single word:
Extinction.
The t-rex touches
The protruding point of
The jagged crystal
To its left wrist,
Feeling the weight
Of the cool glass
On bare skin,
Considering,
Then lets the
Bottle's neck
Slip from its fingers
And tumble to the trampled
Browning grass
Beside the bench.
Not tonight, it thinks,
Not just yet.It stumbles through the door
Into the apartment
And Alyssa's embrace.
I don't deserve her,
Thinks the tyrannosaur,
I don't deserve her at all.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry,"
The monster says,
Kissing her
Over and over,
Until it allows the pills
And the Jack
To finally overtake it,
Sliding to the ground,
Clutching her legs
Like a child,
Thinking that
Wooden floorboards
Never felt
So luxurious.
-- Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:372006
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040729/msgs/372006.html