I woke up with your black cat curled up dead on my feet.
The black cloud was over me and I pretended she was asleep
and nudged her away and went back to depression sleep.
When I woke up she was right where I left her so I took her to the trash freaking out and the furry weight and her empty food bowl made for a fucked up midnight morning.
I drank tall boys until the pharmacy at CVS opened
and bought syringes for my diabetic mother but the clerk and I both know that judgy bitch is healthy as an ox and needs no insulin.
She could use the sweets if anything.
If I shoot enough electricity
I can sanitize this 600 sq ft apartment with bleach
that’ll reek out the building and make
that witch that lingers in the hall ask me
“What the fuck is good with that bleach?”
And I’ll say
“Fuck off Juanita, I got no time for your shit.”
But I’ve got nothing but time.
And echoes.
It moves slow and black through me and I clean the outside because I can’t clean the inside and don’t even ask me what’s in the fridge.
I haven’t gotten to that yet.
Just don’t open it.
You’ll miss the smell of bleach.
Not all my compartments are hollow but we keep them separate.
I put water in the cats bowl then remember and leave it anyway cause fuck, I might have
nightmared it,
and I could’ve sworn I heard a meow two seconds ago.
The oven.
I should really clean that oven.
—
Ryan Purcell is a poet and writer from the New York Metropolitan area. He writes about heavy topics like depression and addiction with the light hand of someone that has walked through them and come out the other side. A decade of bartending and eavesdropping has given him a special interest in communication, language and their inherent breakdowns/limitations.
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