You pick and flick at the constellation of pills spilled across your thin blanket as the new day nurse taps the inside of your elbow, hunting for blue. You grimace as she starts to insert the needle. You could look out the window, she says, as if you didn’t know that trick. It’s fall, and the last remaining leaves are drifting to the ground.

She needles you. So why aren’t you taking your pills? She shakes her head, this nurse who thinks she’s got a window into how you should deal with this latest degradation, this nurse who’s known you since breakfast. Says you could turn your attitude around with the touch of a button. Her index finger pings an imaginary reset in the air. 

You’re standing at the window—you limp, your skinny behind exposed, she rigid and fussing. She flutters a bit with the gown’s flaps, raps the wings of your back. You clench, grab onto the sill, shaking, careful not to lose your balance. You could fall, she warns. Could fracture. She yanks the tie too tightly on your neck.

It’s like this day and night, week after week. Pills choked down the hatch when nurses are tender, thrown overboard if touchy. Your shaking hands. Needle pricks purpling constellations on your arms. Touches welcomed and loathed on your public and private parts. Sour coulds and shoulds showering down. Outside’s dark, then light, then dark again. Stale repeats.

The window is open. I could, you know, you tell her, as you nudge the pane further outwards. Fall. You grin, lean the thin of your body further and further into the sill, look up into inky night, fractured constellations calling, and pulling you away.