Coated

Syrup through which your throat can no longer painfully hack
Cat fur tickle still there penetrating consciousness
Marked, what is still there under drug induced comfort
Like any medicinal utopia that numbs:
Sinuses -- or in my case -- mind
And I never really forget you, the tickle in the back of my throat
Like a cocaine drip, or too much Ritalin
Crushed up in a spoon or with a credit card
Mixed with sugar and water unless a low-carb diet requires
That it go up a nostril. But back to ny-quil
Just as good, but safer. Leaves all those chemicals
Up there, where they were -- same thing really:
Still feel bad and just don't know it
Courageous efforts to fix me undaunted because
I really like this legal high that I disbelieved
For so long. Liberating dependence upon a will
That is not mine and a cough that won't go away.
Dec. 28, 1999