NVN Saturday: WHILE STILL I STAY IN WONDERLAND
by Royal Rhodes
Companies Agree to Pay $19B in Opioid Settlement.
—BioSpace, June 12, 2023
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One pill makes me lighter— ether from Elysium— seeing the world in pixels. One pill makes me forget. Did I take this pill already and even yesterday? One pill lets me blink and conjure unicorns, feeling sweat on my hide. One pill when I awake projects old photos of poets stifling words. One pill lifts me, another drags me headlong. Fear makes my mouth dry. One pill, the last, bestows on me all I desire most: a glimpse of nothingness.
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Royal Rhodes is a retired educator. His poems have appeared in Ekstasis Poetry,
Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge, Foreshadow Poetry, and other literary journals.