I’ve slept deeply
In a field of poppies.
Waking up is like
Rising to the surface
After slumbering
Underwater.
There are banshees below
Waiting to rend you
Into pieces.
Once they
Burrow their way
Beneath your skin,
That’s when the itching
Begins, terrible, nails
Scraping.
But that sleep,
That terrible rich sleep
It tastes of eternity and decay
All those things forbidden
sickly
sweet
Like being
Cradled in the ocean –
Siren songs
Never, ever, leaving you.
Weeks, months, years later,
When you’ve cleaned up
Your act, on that perilous
Straight and narrow
You’ll dream of rifling through
Drawers in stranger’s houses
Hoping for a pill, anything
To get you through
Gray weeks, grayer evenings.
And to think.
It all starts
With a goddamn
Flower.
D.H. Lee
(via Swanksalot)