ROOM #23

Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified.
                                                                   —Susanna Kaysen

i always saw us as two spoons in the kitchen drawer
we spun on silver fingers and raged with caffeine fury
stomping green beans on counter tops with bare toes
and screaming french monologues from our noses

two spoons hiding turkey sandwiches as love notes on windowsills
leaning in flannel symmetry over boiling water
giggling at midnight toast as we dared the dutch oven with guns
to open its squeaky mouth at us

two spoons plucking fat guitars and singing our heads bald
until the doorbell rang and you crumbled into a million dead flies
the man with the long white coat glided in and tilted his head at me
he knit my flannel sleeves into one and stabbed a dry noodle into my arm

the flies held hands as a crown around my head and sang
“tu eres la cuchara única”