The Pill Bottle

Standing topless in front of the old mirrored cabinet,
I stared at the open bottle of pills until the voices came.

“You cannot continue to view your illness with contempt,”
said the bottle of pills. “It’s not something beneath you.”

“The illness,” it added, “is an adversary worthy of your nerve.”
Instinctively, I sucked in my gut and stood up a bit straighter.

This sudden shift in posture caused the pill bottle to rattle,
and my ears were filled with the peals of well-rung bells.

As the room fell back into stoic disquiet, the childproof cap
on the counter gave voice to the silence. “The path you seek,”

it said to me, “is a unique expression of your symptoms.
And it will lead you to something that’s been missing.”

I rolled my eyeballs in their sockets, scanning the bathroom
for any misplaced lotions or decorative soaps, but nothing

seemed out of order, except the pill bottle. “What you need,”
said the bottle, “is less estrangement from your various

selves.” Then almost as if they were searching for something,
the dozens of pills left in my bottle leapt from my hand,

and threw themselves towards the peeling linoleum below.
Standing topless in front of the newly painted wall,

I stared at the open pane of glass until the constellations
came. Careful not to crush the wandering doses at my feet,

I turned to face the bitter pill of the moon, as it called out
to me in a booming voice. It said, “To be estranged from

what makes a person human is to diminish all remaining
humanity.” Then an alarm on my watch face began to chirp,

chirp, chirp, and I knew it was time to discover whether
or not my pills still worked after they fell onto the floor.