I don't even know how to tread water anymore.
I casually wait for the riptide to grab me by my ankles
**** me in until I'm just marrow. I sit in the passenger's seat and let it all pass
Cascade faults
ritualistic, it's described so often like a taste in my mouth
Metal, sharp, pungent
I retract, let it flow down my throat
Fill my chest with yearning
while someone else holds onto the wheel
Biting my lip at the fantasy of getting out of the car, throwing my shoes behind me and swan diving

I don't even want the end.
I don't fantasize the beauty of complete silence.
I linger on the milliseconds before the crack
The stringing pull
Of a visceral heart attack

So anyway
the world seems to fit this specific rotation
where I found myself sitting on this bar stool
ordering
well you know,
not alcohol because,
that one thing my body does so well
is shut down
start peeing blood
not process anything
it just kind of gives up,
constantly,
I mean you remember,
that time you took me to the ER,
How I couldn't stand up and they kept telling me it was going to be ok
but I just looked at you and bleakly smiled because I knew it wasn't
this is my
slow decline
incredibly painful,
younameit

so,

clearing my throat and saying
"just put some fizzy water in a glass and throw a lime in it, it's not that hard and don't look at me like that"


The dive bar
God, it was your dive bar
they were even playing that one song you
played for me on the car stereo
the happy one,
the one I always picture you driving with your one hand on the steering wheel
sun shining on us
that ******* one
and the bartender she rolled her eyes, walked off


I saw this reflection in the mirror
the one right behind the bar
while the neon red light
illuminated my eyes
in that moment
this whiskey taste hit the back of my throat
your sweat, your voice,
all of it, taking over my entity
without my consent I was stuck in
the notes that stung
tickled my tonsils
I could feel you
I swear
you had to have been sitting in this exact spot
an hour or so ago
and the reflection was so used to
you filling this space
it almost just shot an image back of you
at me

I wanted to call you
write you
send you one of those long emails
we used to spend hours typing to each other
to seem profound
to rationalize our mental health by simply stating
"well,
we're writers"
but then I remembered the last thing you said to me
it was more of a question
and I thought about
how selfish that was
"can
we
still..?"
the anger just bubbled from there

it rose to my chest
and I lifted my hand up and said
"actually can you make it a whiskey?"
"a double?

..?"
and I waited for her to roll her eyes again,
walk to the bar,
grab the cheapest well whiskey I've ever seen
and pour it heavy over two ice cubes


You would have liked that.
Im sure you're ordering that right now.

I pulled the shot back
waited for it to hit
quickly requested a Lyft to the nearest hospital

because I knew
in
ten minutes
it would
send me spiraling
and I would be there again
in that same room
where you laid still
and I tried to sleep
to not ***** on you
to kind of just pretend this wasn't a memory
I'd have to actively force myself to forget
as I frequented the same sterile supplies
day in
day out


the room where you chewed on the words
and spit them back out at me
detailing the world I actively live in
the one where
where my body is a ticking time bomb
and not a subplot for your novel

but as I rode with the windows rolled down

I still missed you
I hated myself
I wanted another whiskey
I wanted that reflection again
because at least


that would make this all
feel closer
This would all make a little more sense
and maybe I could forgive you
forgive myself
stop recreating each moment
like I was stuck in a perpetual hell
Because it had to have meant something
it shouldn't just sting.

I think I have successfully found a way to avoid it all
Slamming my fist into the dashboard

The plastic cracks under my knuckles

I see your white lighter that fell

Years ago

rolling out from under the passenger’s seat

initials scratched in sharpie

I said when the tan line on my ring finger disappeared

I’d be over that stage of us

So I kept wearing rings on that finger







I see it in his eyes

The same loss that I felt

Creeping through me

As I claw for the delicate throws of normality

Fantasizing escaping

I wanted to break even

To orchestrate the great

Explain to the world

That I can hold fast

That I can find a sense of sanity that would last

All the while,
tying myself to the train tracks





I used to have this grip

I held it so tightly

promising myself that this mania

of prep meals

and daily runs

would sooth me

I said that the schedule is what will keep me

off the edge of the bridge

but it slipped under my head like a knife

followed me to bed nightly

singing the same trope of dependency



how they led me

I drank them in like their skin

was wine,

I sipped heavy gulps

and called them mine

leading down the same path

of sitting in the passengers seat of the car,

parked outside of our house

holding onto an old lovers lighter