Brain Damage Poem by Barry Middleton

Love went out like satin night
unnoticed in narcotic dreams.
Love left me doped like a black star,
like a pillow made of stone.

Satin, soft one,
your eyes were wet as birth,
and exactly brown.

My hangover is gone
like silk opium into the worm.

It hurt me more to lose my mind
than to lose you.

And yet, my granite sobriety,
asylum gray,
whispers nightly excuses
of how I want to love you
in old, hypnotic dreams,
and laced with the softness
of a tender, breathless embrace.