Astigmatism

I can't come home anymore,

and I can't trust your willingness

to see me until I can at least remember your smile,

and pretend what you're wearing now is the same thing.

I so want to pretend;

I swear I've gotten better,

to the point that even my friends are recognizing

the floor is lava and I'm on the wrong side of the room,

but that's hardly enough

to make this place real again.

It's like everything is coated in mercury

and I'm afraid to touch anything,

afraid to die, slowly, from a heavy metal

replacing my insides

and reducing metabolic flows to stagnant pools

where electrons whirl like clouds of gnats

dogging me and occasionally dying in my eyes.

They're no longer unpredictable—

I could tell you their colors

and why the blue lights are always doubled

and you could know how sick we really are

just by looking:

mine a bright red and yours a pale yellow.