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
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.