Triazolam

COHORT 5

I couldn’t help it-  

The room came pouring in-

Every red blip of the monitor-

The broken tooth-cap in between

His latexed thumb-

Gold on the outside, 

Cushioned with decay-

It’s times like this you realize

It’s better to know 

A thing or two about blood pressure

Than how benzos affect 

The hippocampus,

That horse-fish of memory:

Perpetual fetus

In the mind’s murky womb.

I was proud of what I remembered,

Until I realized there’s a luxury in forgetting-

When I sat in the chair, 

He told me through masked lips

that I’d forget everything-

Whir of a metal drill, 

burrowing pressure

Of a needle in the cheek-

But I was lucid,

Let it flood me;

The mercy of my mouth. 

He told me he couldn’t believe

I was holding a conversation-

“Most grown men take two pills and stagger

through the door”

I felt strong

in my resistant clarity

until he chalked it up to nerves

I had an urge to yell at him-

Open my blood-numb gums-

I dare you: give me three pills, 

Ask me where the dopamine’s flowing;

I’ll stand up and drive myself home.

I’ll swallow my pain  

With peach milkshakes and

sweet potato soup: I dare you. 

Because the six-year molars

Came in with a vengeance-

A determination to navigate

The world with no skin-

A vulnerability that was cut open and open

Then sealed until it rotted, bloomed-

And nothing could prevent me from preserving 

The details; the feel of my tongue 

On my teeth. The chemical-sweet stink

Of bubblegum-flavored laughing gas. 

The hand sanitizer next to the TV.

Because my father told me too late

That sedatives don’t work on him;

Not in the way of memory, at least-

I’ll remember the bite of Novocain 

For the rest of my life:

Absence leaving something

In its place. 

____________________
Triazolam is a central nervous system depressant tranquilizer in the triazolobenzodiazepine class. It’s commonly used in dental surgeries to treat patients with high anxiety. It causes anterograde amnesia, a form of memory loss where the events that occur immediately after taking the drug are forgotten, usually by the next day.