Sarah Nichols | In My Dreams, the Purdue Pharma Building is Always Burning | Poets Resist

Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of seven chapbooks, including Little Sister (Grey Book Press, 2018) and Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, 2018.) Her poems and essays have also appeared in Dream Pop Press, Drunk Monkeys, Memoir Mixtapes, and the RS 500.

Also by Sarah Nichols: She May Be A Saint Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens The Country of No

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: The Monkey on My Back

Poets Resist
Edited by Cody Stetzel
September 30, 2018

Sarah Nichols

In My Dreams, the Purdue Pharma Building is Always Burning

Why give good money to death ? — Terrance Hayes This dream is older than I am. You could choke on the air, plumes of blackened bent spoons and plastic bottles, the ash settling in hospitals and church basements, sticky like opium napalm. A wind blows, and it’s fed, the itching skin of the building satisfied as it tilts sideways, warps, a multi-story nod out. The fire’s been on for twenty-some years. It threw out sparks and half-truths, anything to cop for money. This building will never know dope-sickness the way I have. No shakes or chills in the heat, circling an empty pill bottle, ravenous but not for food. It sleeps well, and never counts days until the prescription can be filled again, or if all of the dead can be brought back with Narcan, some kind of pill junkie miracle. It will never burn down entirely. It makes promises to try harder, to stop lying or pawning the jewelry in a dead woman’s house. One lie is never enough for it. The fire burns all night. I rake the ashes of friends, and wait. One day, the building will be clean.