i told myself i was done.
scrubbed the bathroom tile like it was me that needed cleansing,
not the floor.
drank coffee instead of shots,
hit the gym,
got good at smiling again.
they said i looked better.
they always say that when you’re not dying in front of them.
but they don’t see
how the ghosts still come at night,
how the itch lives in the jaw,
in the back of the eyes,
like a ******* radio playing a station
you thought you turned off months ago.
i was clean.
for a while.
like the silence right before a scream -
that beautiful, dangerous quiet
where you think maybe you made it.
maybe this time you beat it.
maybe this time you win.
but addiction is smarter than you.
it waits.
doesn’t need to rush.
it knows you’ll come crawling
when the applause fades,
when the texts stop,
when the world gets boring again.
you think you’re sparing them,
keeping it tucked away,
like shame’s just a private little pet you feed
when no one’s watching.
but hiding it doesn’t protect them.
it just breaks them slower.
like they’re loving someone through bulletproof glass -
close enough to see the cracks,
too far to stop the bleeding.
and the worst part?
the worst part is that some days
you’re proud of how good you’ve gotten
at pretending.
how well you play “okay.”
like you deserve a ******* medal
for surviving your own lies.
truth is -
you don’t ever get out.
you don’t get cured.
you just get distance.
and even that -
that’s a rental.
because addiction
isn’t about weakness,
it’s about forgetting how to want anything
that doesn’t destroy you.
and maybe one day
i’ll be better.
but i’ll never be new.
and maybe that’s what clean really means -
not the absence of poison,
but the choice to keep waking up
even when it still lives
in your bones.