Oh, that this too, too brittled flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ‘gainst self-medication. Oh God, God,
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the ERs of this world
Fie on’t, fie, tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and painful in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But two months in pain, nay, not so much, not two,
So excellent a painkiller, that was to this
Gravol to a Tylenol, so soothing to my headache
That he might beteem the winds of heaven
Visit my forehead too roughly. Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, he would hang on my eyes
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: yet within a month –
Let me not think on’t; frailty, thy name is Advil
A little month, or ere those pills were old
With which I drugged myself,
Like Sleepy, all yawns, why he, even he –
Oh God, a pill that wants discourse of pain
Would have worked longer! – mixed with my Tylenol,
My Advil’s supplement, but no more like my Gravol
Than I to an athlete. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most pained tears
Had left the twitching in my pale face
Gravol increased. O, most wicked speed to post
With such dexterity to mixed medications!
It is not, nor it cannot come to relief.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
I wrote this in February, 2006.
