otherself-medication

goblin who is not my enemy
goblin who looms at my edges
waiting for sunlight
to tug at the curtains
to run out
clasp at my heel

not enemy not saboteur

nor the unkind words of loved ones

mist that hangs
in air
after spasm stillness
footprints
in wet grass

who is neither loved

nor unloved
who waits

for a succession of moments
that come to nothing

swirl of your dust
your sadness, your trying-again
you who are not entirely my enemy
even now

withdraw my medication
I watch from some distance

that all things of the body
are sort of holy
sort of terrible

faintly irresistible,
compulsion itself
just the shadow
into which words fall
when voice stops
in this world
moves elsewhere

please don't burn so hard so fast
for the smoke offends my fucking eyes also of my friends here
at the next table

O I must have words
with you in your dart of sunlight
goblin of my heart
my own wordless night

here we are beyond recall rolling rolling

she pounds the table (who pounds the...?):

1. Remember this time damn it the waves,
the count the clock all of it remember she says remember...

2. this croupier no one you ever knew just a door banging in a wind
a hand reaching for you so much as start to breathe ugly how you do

beyond recall:

goblin of my spinning
flame in the day
goblin hands that reach to catch
hands that pull away

goblin of the heart's engulfing
roll the old yellow dice