Doctor Shopping Ghost

Erin Carlyle

The doctors I see are benevolent spirits
filling my prescriptions. Orange bottles

awaiting blessing—for a doctor to dip
his pen and anoint my paper. I hand one

doctor my pain, another my worry. I fill
out the paperwork, put it in their open arms.

The doctors breathe up my body ache, they
write a diagnosis on my spine—whisper me

into being. Give me what I need, doctor-priests,
or I will seek until I become a Percocet ghost

haunting a body; holes for eyes—a sheet
soaked in Oxycontin, hoping you will

never cut me off. In the beginning it was
not about becoming a ghost—a transparent

pill casing empty and longing. In the beginning
I was flat on my back looking up at the stars.

 
 
 

about the writer

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Erin Carlyle’s work has been featured in many literary magazines, and her recent chapbook was published with Dancing Girl Press. She holds a MA in Literary and Textual Studies from Bowling Green State University and a graduate certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies from Western Kentucky University.  At the present, she is pursuing her MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University.