i've been waiting to hear the right words from you
like a big-city date-rape victim face down on a wet pillow
my life's been a lie, with shitty odds on tomorrow's
infinite possibilities not turning into another common-place lie

between shadowboxing and rereading the highlighted lines from "the plague"
i wait to be saved by a tear-jerking joke and a southern shotgun laugh
sinking in an embrace with a plugged-in toaster in a boiling bubble bath
the sadness has left me, just before you came, but its voice somehow is still around

i wait to be saved, as i let myself drown