Morpheus: An Ode to Disreality, Death, and You

George Vetushko

Poetry, TW suicidal ideation

A Noose hung low and lonely,

suspended like a ring finger mockingly flaunting its absent band of devotion -- broken.

The loop glowed and gleamed speciously just as the fake gold once had and still did,

but now from the comfort and safety of a trash can.

Eyes dulled umber and staring directly into gravestone grey,
you stood up from the bed in pursuit of something more comfortable than the constant

throb of melatonin swimming through your skin --

numbing like novocaine to a warm corpse.
Letters lay arranged primly and properly on the bureau like dolls in a dollhouse --
purely for aesthetic purposes and lacking any soul to them other than the frilly

meaninglessnesses decorating their even more so meaningless faces.

They bore no shame or guilt or reluctance:
memory and what looked like regret rocked your being, ripping everything on the inside

apart while leaving the delicate exterior too perfectly intact.

Hope?
glorious trepidation,
You approached the Noose in silent appreciation,

memorizing Its beauty as if it would be the last thing you’d ever see

As if Its thready finger daintily choking you would be the last you’d ever feel

As if the elicited wheezes of life prancing out from conflict would be the last you'd ever hear

As if the sickly sweet fragrance of vomit and sweat would be the last things you’d ever smell

As if the taste of iron dulling your mouth in ravishing red would be the last thing you’d ever taste

As if...

You stood up and onto the chair --

its legs wobbling under the discomfort of your trouble’s weight --

and the Noose opened for you,

hugged you,
kissed you,
loved you,
in ways rings never could.
The tightening cord did not ask for things you could not give, It simply asked for your

conscience and offered you rest, unrest unlike anything you’d ever

seen,

felt,

heard,

smelled,

or tasted before.

It asked,
It offered,
and you gave.
The chair gave way.
You leapt in faith and quietly fell further into your skin,
further into the floor,
and further into sleep…
And yet you felt free,
weightless really,
in the loving comfort of the True ring hugging the pain and emotion and hurt and love

and burden and responsibility and memory out of you -- ‘till Death did Them part.

Your eyes rolled back in cathartic pleasure and you were released to feel for once, and

then never again.

But,

you     look back at

It’d always be your dream.       the cheshire grin of a

it’d been a dream.             scrawny little

you wake up, disappointed:             child with a curly

of silver as his mother.          Devil’s lock and

a tongue the same shade