DRUGS Poem: Down the Hatch, by Annie Zhu

it wasn’t hunger. not exactly.
but a fistful of air folded sharp
teeth on the edge of a cage
clawing at marrow.
the flavor thick and syrupy
stuck to my tongue
a rusted sweetness.
flipping soft gut to hard coil.
tearing the wet silk.

metal, bright and jagged,
hooked on its way down.
prayer, cold and chalk-smudged,
blooming damp beneath my palms.

something slid upward
a thing with no name,
the muggy and ancient,
the kind that sits
in your joints, gnawing softly,
familiar as breath.

soft pulp of a pear low and pulsing,
it was cleansing but not clean,
like spilling ink over every inch of a page.
humming low,
soft as a vulture’s stench
on the edge of carrion,
tasting archaic and bitter.

Again.