Our first interaction was in the nightly line for medication
I stared at my faint reflection in the glass of the nurses’ station
Noticing how my face had rounded out from that little blue pill
Added to my evening cocktail.

Weight gain is a side effect of Medicine X,
They told me -
Post twenty pounds.

Red rose to my newly rounded cheeks
As he spoke to me,
Because I figured it would end up in my notes somewhere.

Because the nurses watched us through the glass.
But we watched them too. And it never occurred to them
that they might be the subjects of our own experiments.

And over his glasses,
My own Dr. Gatchet would offer a sympathetic -
Yet all-knowing - stare.

But I responded softly.
And we downed our pills together,
in a twisted version of a college drinking game.

Tipping our paper Daisy cups back to force
The enteric-coated soma down our throats.
And our lips glistened with water droplets.