So many poems
and stories
have gone unwritten
due to fear of not being good enough

Asterisks
because the search engines
and social media software algorithms
block out anything containing the ******* keyword
because god forbid we have some safe place
to talk about it
share our scars
joke around
wallow
ask for advice about how to
best debride
necrotic tissue
without furthering the infection
without being preached to
or told that
it gets better.

Because we can't go to doctors
and we can't go to friends
or family
or anyone.

And because people who have never done it before
or maybe once or twice in high school
with those banal ******* symbolic wrist tattoos
ask us just the stupidest questions
and tell us that we shouldn't display
our scars out in public
because they might trigger some hypothetical person.

My addiction is not a keyword.
My body is not a trigger warning.

****.
****.
****.
*******.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Tired,
Regardless of all the great.
Tired.

I think she isn't sick from sour cream,
but sick with sour dreams.