(needs revision)

Suicide, attempted.
-
I got there in the afternoon,
but the room was
dark.

He stared at the ceiling, and cried quietly,
soft gasps and sobs, unrestrained;

his skin seemed too weathered to absorb the tears.

I rested my forearms on my elbows, watched the tile floor.

He spoke, I listened.

He hadn't always been a construction worker;
his calluses caressed calluses while he looked at his hands.

He would steal morphine from pharmacies to buy drugs
How?
Through the ceiling.

His father would make him wait while he made it.
Made what?
What he was going to beat me with.

His third wife left him almost thirty years ago
Why?
He was too boring.
I cocked my head to the side.
He said:

I've been sober for twenty-eight years.
I don't remember it, I blacked out.
The detective looked at me through the bars.
I almost killed a little girl and her mother.
The detective said, "Fuck you."

My head tipped back, and I watched the ceiling.

The room was dark.