pill organizer 

i keep my days in their terrariums.
a frog on the ceiling. my gills come
& go. the zoom call has a brother
& we are being watched in new &
increasingly horrible ways. 
would you like to share your location
with this god? would you like to 
let the overlords know how often
you hold your breath? the medications
i take sound like drag names.
i open their room & they say,
"are you still deficient?" i do not get
into an argument with them about mad liberation.
instead, i take what i should. 
when i'm feeling really down i  believe
that life is just a series of entered 
& exited rooms. my script did not
come with stage directions. in my parent's house
they removed so many doors that
the ghosts did not know where to hide. 
i could feel the places on the wall
where hinges used to be. i have a pill organizer
that is a replica of that house.
the days mix together. sunday stretches
like a bouquet of legs. my brother tells me
he's off his meds. i suggest to him,
as a joke, that he gets a terrarium.
he doesn't understand the joke. 
we are frogs. glorious frogs. poisonous frogs. 
there is a new pill i saw a commercial for
that prevents the grief from collapsing time.
i make a note to avoid that. i need my grief.
what am i without my grief? 
i used to have two pet toads. i fed them
crickets from my hands. i pretended
i was feeding them time itself.
delicious. all my pills become crickets.
they sing. i take them because i am 
trying to stay alive. sometimes though i imagine
what it might be like to get midnight 
all of a sudden. tell the bugs to scurry away.
hide where no mouth can find them.
when i am my most untethered, i see bugs.
mostly centipedes & ants. they tell jokes
i do not understand. they say, "you should
get a brother." i remind them, "i have one."
he comes over & both of us want to cry but don't. 
i take the bedroom. turn it upside down.
empty it & all the dirt into my mouth.