still surviving

Overdose

My eyes are bloodshot, unfocused,
staring at the blank, colourless walls
of the hospital.

Toxins swim through my veins,
racing heart pumping poison
around my body,
lightning streaking across my retinas,
a distant, blurred meniscus of technicolour.

My memory is failing me,
the room shifting, walls pulsing
as if they're coming to life.
Screams rip through the busy air
of the emergency room,
and I can't tell if they're mine or not.
My hands shake, gripped by ataxia,
unable to flex my fingers,
and the letters on the forms, the walls
turn to hieroglyphics,
glitching, unfocused, in neon lights.

Every sense is shrieking,
red alarms flashing in my poisoned brain.
I try to get up, staggering,
crying,
but arms clamp around me like a vice,
blocking my escape,
my last cry for help.

The scream rises from deep in my chest,
piercing, animalistic,
as I twist in the grip of this stranger,
flailing, desperate, panicked,
hysterically yanking my arms away
in a drug-induced terror,
held tightly enough to cut off circulation
in my hands.

I'm no longer the only one shouting.
The blow catches me by surprise,
pain searing through my neck,
my head,
as I'm thrown like a rag doll
to the floor, suffocated
by the weight of four officers.
My teeth snap over my tongue
as my head hits the floor,
blinding me with a staccato explosion
of flashing colours,
blood filling the inside of my mouth.

Terror seizes me in its clasp,
an abyss of sheer panic,
my throat raw, sliced from screaming.
I try to lash out, adrenaline pumping,
but there's a weight on the back
of my neck,
crushing my skull,
pressing my face, soaked in tears
against the hospital floor.

I wake up the next day,
my body a constellation of bruises,
the ink-black ghost of fingerprints
seared deep into my flesh,
as if they're still holding onto me.