Rolling

I walked and walked feeling not good but accomplished

as one drug then another worked
their mania further into me.

He rolled me over
the industrial carpet,
held my mouth


*

with one hand while his other scrubbed its way across me.

Our bodies in the dark, and our bodies
in the spotlight. I lost so much time

           after inhaling whatever he gave me.


*

           So what was I thinking
at the window, washed in dial tone?

I spoke into my hand-sized phone long after the call

had ended. The city flickered
like a medically induced hallucination.
I had come over for some reason


*

when the key announced itself with the sun.
Later, I climbed into his building,

and he climbed into me. And so I say love
           in defense; when he says it—

a confession.
There were nights
I popped off


*

on a treadmill. Days goddamn
blistered endlessly across my tongue.

I would return to the same video about what will happen


*

and people ramming their bodies
against one another in the dark.

I would say not tonight
before rolling over,
before lowering my phone

and watching the sun slide its head into the earth.

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