ripped and stitched

filling crosswords in a hospital bed
my childhood returns -
memories of the mary celeste,
whose ghostly bows i walked upon so many years ago,
no longer lost or faded in the fog.

and as my life leaks out of a plastic tube
i am vampiric and thirsty -
my neck ripped and stitched, cut and shut,
an undead red blood wound
that soon should wreak vengeance
on a world too fucked to care.

but night-time pills close eyes and book,
sending ghost ships and vampires to sleep.
lights and life fade behind the curtain
and i am adult and anaesthetised again,
my childhood dreams now nothing more
than clotted hair and red chalk on a pillow.