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.

He is tall with limbs that stretch like  
         roots,
     Eyes and teeth and ears sing joy
  ‘What does love feel like?’
He asked my friend
Her nose twitches, her ears spike up
Like a bunny offered a carrot
  ‘Like a deep breath in
       Like walking through the door,
           And dropping your bags.
              You're home.’
                  Exhale
She smiles so bright, I'm sure
she has swallowed the sun
   ‘What does love feel like?’
He asks me
    ‘Bug under a boot.’
Exhale

A long endless road
Reaching out to desolation
Mile markers stand
Martyrdom, tribulation

Foot after foot
Miles or kilometers
A heart of soot
It doesn’t matter

Grevious each step
Calculated disaster
Lonely tears wept
The big there after

And I see
The invisible things
We are ‘we’
Dents, bruises and dings

And I know
The language we speak
And I show
The birthright of the meek

It is all upside down
We color outside the lines
World will bring us down
We dance out of time

A moment to find
An ancillary rhyme
In limerick skew
We do what we must do
To take ownership of our time

Every room I‘ve lived in
still exists somewhere,
paint peeling,
floors scuffed by boots
I don’t wear anymore.

The walls hold secrets
I‘ve forgotten -
the arguments,
the silence after arguments,
the hum of the fridge
at 2 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep.

I wonder if anyone hears me now,
the way I hear the ones
who came before.

there‘s a room in my head
where I put all the things
I can‘t say to anyone.

it’s cluttered.
broken chairs,
half-drunk bottles,
notes scrawled on napkins
with words
I was too afraid to mean.

people tell you
to let it go,
but what they don’t tell you is -
the heaviest stuff
floats right back.

The city doesn’t sleep,
it mutters to itself,
like the old man on the corner
shaking his cup for spare change.
The lights blink out messages
you’re too tired to read,
and the streets carry whispers
of footsteps you’ll never follow.
You’re alone,
but not lonely-
not really.
The world’s still spinning,
the stars are still laughing
at us poor fools who think
this moment
means something.
But maybe it does.
Maybe that streetlight blinking ahead
is a sign.
Or maybe it’s just a bulb going bad.

Does it matter?
You keep walking.

You touched me,
and I remembered how stars bleed
before they die.