Hospital Room Confession

Drawing by Valentin Melik



Hospital room confession


I see in their faces it is over now.

The drugs they give me
make me hot and cold.
In this room there is no way out
but sleep.
No conversation but the one articulating
within my own head.

I count my murders on both hands.
When love cried I refused to comfort her.
I married the woman father’s money bought.
I was weak in the innocence of my haste,
listening only to my own voice.
Everything went wrong.

Breathing in the atmosphere denied,
I turned on duplicity like a light
that it might hide me
from the rage within myself.
I could not see how quickly
we become what we destroy.

Behind my silences a meanness grew.
I tried to climb beyond regret,
driving my wife to drink,
my sons to cheat.
A bird of prey I stole my pleasures
at their expense.
Beyond the broken shape of streets
I halted on, forgotten faces,
no house fine enough,
no fire warm enough,
no friend good enough,
no success great enough
to stand me still,
that I might rest in the shine
of the irregular moments flow.

Now I know, all the while
I was running toward my own retreat.


Scott Malby

Posted over on Hawkwind Creations