It’s two a.m.
The emergency room psychiatrist looks up from his clipboard
with eyes paid to care
and asks me if I see people who “aren’t really there.”
I say, “I see people…
how the hell am I supposed to know
if they’re really there or not?

He doesn’t laugh.
Neither do I.
The math’s not on my side,
ten stitches and one lie, “I swear I wasn’t trying to die,
I just wanted to see what my pulse looked like from the inside.”