Therapy in volumes

What will you give for these words to breathe
to live on this page for as long as they can,
your fingertips submerged in ash-
leave tyre-tracks across a sheet of A4.
Escaping like oxygen from your lungs,
nicotine scars flash like butterfly-bruises
your hands rise free from your strangled veins.

You lead your pen across a surface
that isn’t ripped apart by your self-destruction.
Where a life isn’t contained in exile;
placing your skin under a glass cup
scaling for the presence of needles-
like angels,
like saviours.

And your nails glow under street-lamps
like they know where they’re heading
in the purple glaze of dusk.
And even though they retreat into your pocket-
pass the buttons on your mobile like brail;
with no recognition of the dealer’s name
or the weight of your arms like lead;
trying to step back into time
when words were
fixed
in your bloodstream,
in your memory.