Jasmine, I am headed underground

to the cool still blue silence

to those layers of glass

finely ground sugar under my belly

a slow sigh of black water.

Some nights it bubbles like champagne

Other nights it is a thick sticky molasses

Intoxicating and inescapable

Filling up my chest and settling in

As if to say

“Old friend it has been too long”

Underground

has a taste like licorice and aspirin

It feels like cheap hospital sheets and gin

Gulped warm out of a stolen cup

Underground

is where Judas hid his thirty pieces of silver

before he stepped off the platform on the L-train

Underground

The years of ugly thoughts have begun

To manifest themselves

On the warzone of my body.