Word Planet

Sloth, by Thalia Patrinos

I’ll be waiting for when the night-time crowds diminish

Into glittering shadows, after the masqueraders carouse past three

Watch them dance their night and paychecks away

Pining for pandemonium, aching to ingest a riot

I’ll wait for them to be done with their beers and bar sluts

When they all crawl home, all the nighttime crowds

All the women who have done what counts as cheating now

The criminals, the career engineers, all the bipolar bad girls

Everyone between picture-perfect and neglected-nude

When they crawl home I’ll be waiting in their beds

As they succumb to the moon’s translucent might

I’ll spend the night spinning their nightmares,

Out of nothing but black hopes that grow like weeds and

Two dollar’s worth of dime-store paint. I will give them

The escape they wished for, I will be their concubine of chaos

The tar of night shades the earth with no man’s land

My saline stare will scald their memories, scorch them to dust

I’ll save the sweetest pains for last, and swallow slowly

Until the sky is awash with sun-blood dripping down

They are all mine, as I grip them tightly with cracked nails

Even though I only see through closed eyelids and murky dreams

I am a part of everything. Fill their days with dirt, unexplained sting

I’ll be the reason they aren’t having satisfying sex

And why they flunked out of business school, they’ll wonder why

But the answer’s in your bed, your safe warm bed

I am every scumbag college kid strung out on caffeine

I am every one of their single mothers addicted to sleeping pills

I am every distraction, every deep-rooted desire

Every television set and video game software and street drug

I will preserve my patience until the next night; I’ll keep waiting.