Brooklyn Bridge

I'm not sleeping. I'm not eating. I'm breathing
crocodiles. My skin's the color of my teeth.
Inside me, something is subtracting bone.
My skull can sense the ugly sponginess of my brain.
I'm walking funny but only comedians notice.
Ice packs and hot baths yield no relief, though
my dreams are now less checkered than they
have been. And nothing seems to be able to stem
the gathering reflux of stale experience and sour
memory. Life's a gag. Don't make me swallow
any more. Smash all glasses. I'm misery on stilts.

And then the blessed angel came down from heaven
and took the despairing man into his outstretched arms
and cradled him and consoled him and comforted him.