morphine
the first time i drank morphine
a weight slid over my heart
& the whole summer
collapsed under me
my head packed with ice
phone overflowing with garbled texts
& all because of this vertebra
a firecracker in a closed fist
& morphine the only thing to smoulder it
how all medicine
pulls you away from yourself
just enough to create distance
topless before the fan
in a pool of sweat
dreaming of dusty fields
where the brittle petals of poppies waive
in the breeze
i scratch myself awake
skin blistered red
my nails at my body like a hand
at my throat
the morphine pulling life from me slow as a splinter
a syringe squeezed
millilitre by millilitre
Daniel Sluman is a 34-year-old poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability poetry anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and he has published three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press. His most recent collection, single window was released in September 2021, and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.