N.B. The Dose Age is a Found Poem based on
Sean L. Corbin’s “Pill Poetry” (as coined by Amy
Camuglia). I used his poems Wellbutrin, Abilify,
Zoloft, Omeprazole and Nicotine

Little white pill in the clouds—

each day you pull me into the

enough-to-breathe-sphere, I know

I am chemically on the jet stream,

oh my darling, oh my dear!

A daily dream: a feather that turns into evening,

the dying sun waiting to kiss my wife,

that edge in the morning clouds,

where the wild spike’s laughter is a maze.

Blue dishes and waxen arguments, too complicated

to punch random walking opinions, or write a sketch.

Like lights down the hatch, the yellow disk drops,

magic everything is a photograph—

a neon fire elopes, a level surface is steady,

I can finally breathe and no one blisters,

but, the heat—the heat

is lost just like a kiss far away.

The safety net snaps, falls out between my fingers.

This is something to choke on, after vomiting.

I need to settle, keep the cherry chalk burning back,

I need to suck until it cools.

Eventually the urge covers the wretch.

My eyes bleed, veins burst pointless acid.

My tongue sweating the porcelain memory,

fading thought, “Mercy, some God, You.”

Two minutes without You,

without that burning bell in my chest,

or my shooting open pulse, or the quickening grin—

“I miss you, my children.”

“Breathe, my wife.”

“Taste something. Give me something.

To love or long for.”

The fire in my mouth breaks the silence—

You killed yourself.

Fucking fuck.