The Purple Pills

THE PURPLE PILLS

I come from small, round, purple pills,
Bearing black letters in a little arc
And a little number at the bottom, well contained.
I come from my mother’s pills – pink,
But same letters,
And a slightly different number.
I come from my grandfather’s – father’s father’s –
Alcoholism, which they tell me is related,
A linked gene.
ADD is linked to those too –
And low and behold, I have blue capsules,
Two with dinner, because they will knock you out.
Take with food or they will make you nauseous.

I come from the dark inertia and paranoid self-doubt
Of forgetting the pills.
Ironic, isn’t it –
The disease they’re meant to cure
Prevents their regular consumption,
Because it’s hard to care about pills
When it’s hard to care about anything.

The only pills I care about,
In those dark and stagnant times,
Are in the little bottle of Tylenol downstairs.
Consuming them all is an all-consuming thought.
Maybe then, maybe, someone will notice where I come from,
The pain and cold and dark that follows me.