Thread Count

By David Lavenda

It’s a choice—
or is it?
I’m simultaneously the windshield and fly, already speeding toward it.

White, oblong solid.
100mg, stamped—miniature epitaph—
designed to stop the hammering
between my ribs
that nails me to sheets—
pillows, blankets.

Taste of bitter promise,
the throat constricts around what must
be swallowed.

I cave to gravity—
the mattress learning my shape,
iron on my tongue—
the pill's aftertaste or just regret?

I dissolve—
into thread count.

David Lavenda is a poet and physical therapist from Islandia, New York, with thirty years of experience working closely with patients through pain, recovery, and resilience. Drawing from both personal experience and a career spent witnessing the quiet courage of the human body and spirit, his poetry explores bullying, addiction, legacy, and parenting. His work has been published in Down in the Dirt Magazine.