Did you think
after all these years
they’d give you free access
to the medication?
Did you think they’d finally say,
this is the happiest we’ve ever seen him –
this is the happiest drug you’ll ever use?
Don’t show me any kindness.
If you show me any kindness I’ll collapse
like a broken umbrella in your arms.
These are my demands.
Did you think they’d call off the experiment?
I am the ideal candidate.
Wearing white coats from the underground,
did you think they’d come out and applaud
when you’d done everything to please them?
Angry when they said angry.
Sad as suicide when they let the dose slide.
In love like a dog whining
when they pierced the eye of light,
slobbering in your pen.
Did you think they’d show themselves again
when they’d left all the clues for you to find?
Did you think that you’d escape by drawing circles
with your blood? drawing circles with your hate?
I am the ideal candidate. Everything I thought to find
I found. Before they lay me in the ground
I can only dance with you one more time,
even if you’re not here.
Wearing white coats from the underground,
I tell my daughter I saw the angels. But
I don’t tell her what they told me.
If you show me the smallest kindness
I’ll collapse into your music like an
earth hum. Nothing you see is as it
should be. My world has been lost and won.
Lost and won. I can separate I from me.
I am the ideal candidate. And, after the rigmarole
of questioning, lost and won, this is the happiest
I’ve ever been.
To dance with you one more time,
even if you’re not here.
Wearing white coats from the underground,
I don’t think they’ll show themselves again.
These are my demands. When I land,
say you don’t understand.
Say you don’t understand.
Say you weren’t with them when they administered
the initial dose. Say you didn’t know me, we weren’t
close. When I fall and when I land, say
it wasn’t planned.
I can draw a circle with my blood.
But when I fall I can’t protect you.
Show me no more kindness.
I’ll collapse like a broken angel in your arms.
These are my demands.
You don’t understand.
Stop thinking.
