i am the controlled group
i expected interferon and
i got a saline injection
hepatitis c is the
monster
hiding under my skin

i've called for 300,000 favors
from faceless friends - IRC, IRBs, dietitians, physicians
to try to cheat the system
and to cheat the 4 horsemen
harbinging my own internal apocalypse
"If they don't give me anything,"
I began calmly to my wife;
"the scars on my guts will generate another
Chernobyl out of frustration;
out wanting to see my son graduate."

my white blood cell count is 3
and i will wreck this study
go to mexico
and buy as much real medicine
as i need to survive
rudely refusing the FDA's
50% miracle drug
the ingenious intravenous
sugar pill

i only have 3
white    blood    cells
circumventing valuable scientific knowledge
is not off the table
i will walk away in slow motion
after saving my liver from
hepatitis hellfire horse jockeys in lab coats
with the entirety of clinical research
burning behind me

i'd never thought that I would lose my virginity on a small couch in my friends living room.
but then again.
i'm not one to think about things, just rush into them like a stubborn headed hammer, breaking things along the way.
id never thought that I would run out of the house with purple, naked feet crushing the ice underneath me like small bones, in the middle of a black December silence.
and it was nice seeing a 2 am silhouette at the end of my road, cigarette in hand like always, your breath a steady stream of white, drowning me in an ocean of nicotine.
and I was high and you were drunk,
and I slipped and kissed your wine tinted lips,
and our skin made a forest fire, as we tangled ourselves in the crackle of a wood burning stove,
and the silent tread of snow on the sleeping town.

i wrote a poem. it wasnt about the leaves falling or growing back. it was about a boy that was too sad to
even look at himself in the mirror. sometimes he believed that if he looked in the mirror for too long he wasnt who he was supposed to be, sometimes if he looked in the mirror too long he became a monster and thats particularly the reason why he avoided the mirror at night because thats when monsters become real and he was tired of thinking of himself as a monster.
i wrote a poem but it wasnt about summertime or the way the sand feels between your toes or the cold rush of ocean water on a hot day. it was about the salty tears that he would cry because demons were haunting his room at night. and not the demons like ghosts but the demons from within. the kind of demons that you cant run away from.
i wrote a poem it wasnt about a bride blushing when the groom snuck a kiss when the priest wasn't looking it was about the funeral we gave you. it was about the hundreds of people who stood in line just to see your face one last time before youre put in the ground. it was about me staring at your chest from afar hoping that it would move that maybe this was one of your famous jokes and maybe your lungs would start working again along with your heart and your organs and your brain and maybe your eyes would open. perhaps itll scare someone whos standing right next to you but who cares bc youre alive. but you didnt. and now now youre in the ground.
i wrote a poem and it wasnt about me it was about finding the demons. i found the demons inside of you when you were put into the ground. i found the demons because as they lowered your casket into the 6 foot hole they dug for you i saw one slip out before they closed it. the demon was dancing on your casket and as they lowered you to the ground, i jumped. i didnt jump up i didnt jump back. i jumped in and i started hitting that demon as hard as i could because now that youre gone the demon had no place else to go. the demon knew he had won but even the best fall down sometimes and i made sure he fell as hard and as far as he could.
i wrote a poem but i couldnt save you from yourself. if i could have shrunken down and fought that demon before you left me i would have. but i couldnt. i had all these words left to say to you but they started in my chest and never made it to my throat and now im sitting here with all the words that couldnt have saved you anyway because the demons were trapped inside of you. the only way for you to be happy again is to cut yourself open & rip them out yourself, so you did. the demons were trapped & stuck inside you, and i know because i have demons stuck inside of me too. but sometimes i get so mad because if im still here then why arent you? if im still here fighting myself trying not to rip out my own demons, then why couldnt you have done the same? i needed you.
i wrote a poem. and it was about my demons being stuck inside of me and theyre crawling and theyre running around and sometimes they run to a dead end and they hit my fingertips and they bounce  back and run straight into my heart. they run through my veins, through my arteries. sometimes they break my ribs in the process but they heal so quickly that the doctors dont believe me and call me crazy but i promise them that theres a demon inside of me and hes breaking my ribs and hes breaking my soul and hes breaking my heart but i can still feel the demons running inside me. and i dont know how or why or when but i just want them to go away i dont know how im going to do that but i said some day i would. and i think thats the reason i cut myself open, to try and find a way to show the demons a way out but they run through my blood stream and i can feel them in my fingertips and i can feel them
in my forearms and i can feel them in my elbows and i can feel them in my shoulders and in my neck and i can feel them going down my throat. and i can feel it in my chest and i can feel it in my liver and i can feel it in my stomach and i can feel it in my pelvis. and i can feel it in my knees and i can feel it in my shins and i can feel it in my ankles and i can feel it all the way down to my toes and suddenly its like an electric current and it flows all the way back up to my head and shock the hair in its roots. it feels like i cant say anything fast enough or correctly.
i wrote a poem & it was about sometimes i believe that why i write & not speak is because i cant say the right words and maybe if i state at a blank piece of paper long enough the right words will come out but i know, i know they wont bc the demons are still stuck inside of me and i think thats why you wrote so beautifully that night and didnt ask for help. the demons knew that they were finally coming out and sometimes when the demons come out its the best time to say things.
i wrote a poem and it was about wanting peace. i just dont have peace but rather i have pieces of myself.
i will never have peace until my demons are gone. but im trying to find a way to get the demons to leave me alone without dying im not sure if i know the right way but im sure as hell trying. but the drugs dont work and the alcohol doesnt work and the cigarettes dont work and the blood doesnt work and the pills dont work. but i have to find a way to stop them before they eat me up inside and they tear me apart. in order to stop them ill have to tear myself apart and thats why i break things and thats why
i throw things because i have to find something to destroy other than myself and sometimes i pull my hair because i cant understand whats happening to me.
i wrote a poem and i started to see red for a bit but i stopped seeing red because the curtains are red and the walls are yellow. the candle on top of the cabinent is red brown and yellow and the book on the couch is  yellow and red the couch is yellow red tan green blue. the table is brown and the floor is brown but the carpet and the drapes are red.
i wrote a poem. maybe i should stop talking about them before they come back its like a taboo its like the  field of dreams and the saying"if you build it they will come" and i promise you that if i built a bridge from my heart to my brain the demons would make their way back & i would be consumed by them and im not sure if i can deal with that so ill cut the bridge in half before they start walking towards my brain.
i wrote a poem. and it was about me snapping that bridge in half and watching the demons fall down my throat and into the acid in my stomach, but that doesnt make any difference because once one does another one is born. so as long as the demons keep walking they will die with my secrets but the new ones will find  a new way to torture me, and maybe thats worse because if they need new ways to torture me then every thing will torture me. perhaps thats what happened to you.
i wrote a poem but im not sure what its about anymore. but i do know that its not good and im tired of speaking.

He was angry because the boy with glasses and a gamer shirt had told me he wished he had a girl like me.
It’s not you, it’s me. And the fish bowl that was twice the size of your head.
Punching the wall, I knew
jealousy was a
understatement.
it crawls under your bed and waits until it is four in the morning and you have nothing left
Except tears and yearning for something different,
yet you know you cannot have anything different,
because the thought of mornings without him,
and the thought of phone calls absent of his vocals
makes you want to rip open your ribs until you color his
freckles.
He was angry because he was threatened,
and it was so stupid, so animalistic.
I am not territory, not a tree you lift your leg to mark on.
I am a human, a human, a human, I just want to be
loved.
the door broken, his lips bleeding,
he kissed me until I thawed.
his shoulders shook as he cried and cried and cried,
please be mine, please be mine, please be mine.
jealousy is what we romanticize about,
yet it is the monster we will
become.

we are the people our parents warned us about
in all the bedtimes stories & fairytales
we are the ones who judge a book by it's cover
& not its content
we are the ones that distort the reflection in the mirror
we are the ones who stopped checking for the monsters underneath our beds when we realized they were inside of us all along
we are the one called

society
a.c.

since i decided that the chain was too short
and the anchor i had attached myself to
was pulling me under

it's been Three Months since I've sharply inhaled and
let go of the rope
and stood slack-jawed
and in awe
at the calm with which you watched it suddenly go limp in your relaxed palms,
and then shrugged,
and retreated.

Three Months since I've turned my head toward the horizon
and rubbed the tension of staring at a backward-moving object
from my weary neck.

Three Months of my infatuation worming its way back into more isolated parts of my mind,
and festering in my body,
becoming quiet--
like the absence of a laugh track
while the film keeps playing.

And I feel like I am still holding my breath.
It's different now because I finally see the pattern.
Breathe easily,
       breathe excitedly,
gasp,
hold your breath,
                  feel it abruptly leave your body as you deflate
find your breath again,
                  have it stolen from you once more

The question is: what will lure my lungs back into blissful submission again? And how much time am I left with to enjoy my returned sanity?

And if you came back,
I think it would feel like a falling dream.
I think I am in the falling dream.
I am grasping and flailing and fearing the crash,
everything becoming a quickening blur of
irrational analysis and false epiphanies,
an asymptote approaching demise...
until
i wake up
(and realize that I never really was falling).

Only to have the ground snatched from under my feet once again
but instead of down, I will go up.
(and then down again)
I wish I wasn't familiar with this pattern.