The Prescription

The Prescription #555

Did she have the right dosage in these jars?
Elixir of life from lifelessness
Would it solve her loneliness?

She’d find a man scared of killer bunnies
He didn’t need to have any cash
To prove he’s real, his nose must be runny
He’d hand her his soul in a flash

Does he have to pretend to possess a beating heart?
She’d never heard him utter a fart
She must escape from her studio box
Her job of setting endless cuckoo clocks

It was never the right time to end her strife.
She’d flip out at the wrong toss of a dime
Think about committing a heinous crime
Why did her alarms chime, control life?

She set out to burn her cubicle a toasty ash
Slapping lighters from hand at sorely needed cash
Accidentally, she scalded her fingertips
And timidly placed them on her chapped lips

She had the thirst for a draught of something strong
While she filed some papers, she sang a mourning song
She had to deliver a report to her new boss
On the relative benefits of flavored floss

She always felt at a loss to explain
The holographic coffins running through her brain
A sleeping man was smiling, remembering her refrain
What was true but her disdain?

Now, she was trying to be her own woman and her parents no longer persisted.
She would run her own time-sharing company as if they never existed.
But, there was this one quiet man who glimpsed at her like he had a plan
She would build her own flames if there were not any to fan

She could walk outside and feel safe in the night of all returns
And go to bed as if she had never been shaken and spurned to self-immolation
She would no longer go by herself on vacation or regret her chosen vocation
She would draw herself a future, paint herself a sprite, be born again and burn

What she required was a court jester
Not a work of modern sculpture
He could be nothing like her Aunt Hester
Only ever appreciating the best mess of her

If by chance, he plummeted from the sky
She’d ask him the meaning of his endless cries
He’d have genuine innocence and grace
To end her sighs and retire her mace

She dreamed she was drowning in a bowl of whipped cream
While manhandling a department store mannequin
She’d driven her train through the office to blow off some steam
She’d told her therapist it was not another of his Freudian harlequins.

In the basement of her parents house, she’s discovered her sexual mouse
Then, how would you explain these shaking cars?
Clouded spells of chemical hypnosis,
Would it help her find a prognosis?

by Micah Zevin 2007

Do you need a Prescription...You probably do...tell me about it!