clutching onto ****** bedsheets,
i woke up in paralysis,
petrified by silence next to frequencies
repeating in my ears like a killer headache.
my body was stuck in a pale green buzz:
sickly and menacing and groggy.
i wanted nothing more than this,
for i had fallen ill,
and i could not escape it.
hands down my throat, mud in my lungs,
i blacked out underneath my shallow breath
decaying and dilapidated,
dying with every second.

i am the toxins
melting into my brain.
i am drunk, i am midnight, i am destructiveness.
i want to be better,
not because you told me to,
but because i'm still melted in the melancholy
seeping out of my flesh
and dripping in between my fingers.
i want to be better
because the crushed up powder
still lingers on my hands
like fingerprints at a crime scene,
and it's slipping through the cracks in my skin.
i want to be clean and kind,
i want to be carnival lights and sweetness.
i want you to see me sober again
and i want you to know that i'm sorry.

cough syrup runs through my body,
taking the place of my blood
and settling like sand in my stomach.
if only you could see
my candy coated intestines
and the garbage in my bone marrow,
eating away at my body.
with wires and dirt and smoke,
i have destroyed this vessel,
only to wake up the next day
disturbed a little bit more.

she's sitting right next to me
taking in the hospital smell
all over my clothing.
i pity her,
for i know it's so hard to be burdened by
another person's illness.
"i'm sorry," i tell her.
for the ***** on my bedsheets,
the poison in my blood,
and the errors in my brain.
the tobacco in my fingernails,
the rips in my skin,
the bullets in my torso.

i hope the shallow pools of blood beneath my lungs stay there forever,
and i hope the gin soaked into
the lining of my stomach
sinks into my bloodstream one day and finally poisons me.
you planted dandelions in my throat
and watched them bloom through my skin
like bright yellow daggers,
you did nothing, i said nothing,
my skin is still covered in ****** patches of grief
and i wish so many things would've turned out differently.
but the pills just kept taking me
further and further away from whatever the **** i used to be
and i wonder if there was anything
that could cure the sugar-coated massacre
that's infected my bones and my brain and my skin.
i wish the liquor would've killed me sooner
but it didn't. and now
im stuck with the ache of sobriety
eating away at my intestines.

smoke escapes from your lips
and i am reminded of what i am here for.
you put your cigarette out
on your skin
and whisper while the whiskey water
stays settling in my stomach.

between murky gray undertones,
the day unfolds before me
like an old, yellow envelope
held in the creases of my palms.
washing my face in the gas station sink,
my stomach goes sour.
sitting idle in the repeating weeks,
i ask:
is this what i'm living for?
neutral toned sweatshirts and
bitter coffee that stains my teeth?
maybe i should stop asking.
after all, i am so incredibly tired.
i light my last cigarette,
and walk my last walk home.