John and Lisa's Blue Skies Blog – Soaring with God

Her infant two
months old, she can’t bear
a fourth week of blue
pills: Prozac prescribed
by OB/GYN. So
she stands at kitchen
sink, stares out window
unseeing, with open pill
bottle at her right hand.

She fills
an old glass, cut
from Arby’s complete zodiac
set, this her Pisces glass
with two fancy blue fish
swimming in a circle, one
up and one down.
The downward moving
fish wins today. One pill
on the tongue, one sip
of water – and then
one pill, one sip, over
and over – such an easy
rhythm after all.

She knows she could
stop, but why? She’s dead
inside already, can’t cry.
Her stomach sits
heavy, full of water
and pills, but she must finish
the task once started.

At last, she holds empty
bottle once filled
with sixty pills. Who would
believe it? Not the ER
nurse, for sure, who swears
he heard sixteen pills.

After NG tube, cold activated
charcoal, a seizure,
unconsciousness,
she wakes in hospital
gown hours later
with urinary catheter
and wonders how
she’s alive. Her ears echo
with “Wake up!” said
somewhere, sometime
maybe in a dream.