Eight, Nine, Ten.

Eight, Nine, Ten.
Here, now,
The room is larger, with more space to amplify
The sting and the scream of white walls.
Life here is jarred and pickled and glared at
From the beady, analytical eye
Of every yellow-toothed, white-robed passer-by.
A thick, muggy morning
Sometime in early September;
Most the leaves are green yet, but with a sad,
Wilted look about them, as if all hope is lost.
And look at you, quiet, apologetic patient,
A bloodless spectacle
Amongst bloodless objects in a lifeless room.
Where is the metal in you?
Blood machine,
Do your worst.
Strike me three more times in two arms
With your bayonet hands and greedy magpie eyes.
In the morning
Say nothing as you strike,
And bustle me along through corridors of red
Like two colliding blood cells in a carpeted vein.
Half an hour has passed,
And still no syrup has dripped from these white limbs
Where blue should be
Conquering the expanse of my body like streams
Of precious crimson honey,
The stuff of want.
You look as if to tie me down
With those desperate bands you tie,
You tie,
And still no hope for the ignorant nurse
Who knows nothing of strangling the woman out of a girl.
You hopeless wretch,
You come back to us another day
With your drunken, watery veins
And a teary little face,
The face of a girl,
With colour flushed from it
Like blood sapped from a body.
Meat puppet, meat puppet,
We’ll see that you work again.