The Amenta - Cell

[Instrumental]

In the seaward slums of the city, a small, second story room
It is one of many identical rooms, nothing sets it apart.
There is a bare, stained bed and a sharps jar on the Formica table
The only sounds are the insect buzz Through the window of the broken neon in the rain and the shallow hiss of her breath

She squats in the corner.
Something implicit yet childlike in the splay of her legs
A needle and spoon lie neatly at her side.
There is a tattoo on her thigh, perhaps a snake or a snarl of barbed wire
Smeared by time beyond recognition.

We fall, flightless, into the pin prick in her ankle
Wombed by blood, we are thrust by the throb of her heart to the tips of her fingers and back through the branches of her veins.

We come to rest, spent, behind her eyes and see ourself as she would see us.
A contusion of neon spreads across our face and turns our smile into a sneer.
Our outstretched hand is a clawed parody of its empathetic intent.
Through her ears we hear a distant tidal roar of freeway traffic.
The keening calls of police sirens, an endless conversation of rain.
S T A T I C
Pull. Back.

We crouch at her feet and the smell flares our nostrils.
Through the lank shroud of her hair we see the twitch of her lips.
We hold our breath and put our ear to her mouth.
Only the whistle of breath through her broken teeth.

Where her voice fails her eyes deliver:
"It's OK. OK. Leave us alone."
We can only shrug and walk from the room.

On the stairs we are momentarily crushed.
By the weight of our pain, personal and empathetically accrued, yes.
But also by the image of these countless , identical rooms, all with their own catatonic residents.
And perhaps others, standing over them, envious of their escape.

Gathering our coat at our chest we walk out of the doorway into the rain.