Every week
I see two different psychologists.
They told me to define Recovery.
Doctors visits,
blue prescription pads,
handfuls of pills
putting medicine in me
hoping that i don't get sick.
Do i take them all at once?
My anxiety made me
rip the label off the bottle
because that's what i do when i get nervous
i tear things away and
maybe that's where you went
but Doc said
i had to take them to get better,
so why not say bottoms up?
face-up in a casket.
Wait.

They told me to define Addiction:
hands shaking from a clean blood stream,
need to feel *****,
match the fingerprints on the bottle
with the ones on my own throat;
trying to stop the substance
even though i made the choice
to swallow.
I am always swallowing,
a constant cycle of open throat
throwing liquor down the hatch
tossing a few pills back
just to hear the splash.
Is it six feet down?
Tell me how far my empty goes.
Wait.

They told me define Empty.
The hollow nothing disguised as a chest,
a bedroom after death,
my stomach on a good day,
your eyes after i told you i loved you
and my voicemail when you stopped calling.
I used to ignore your calls
so I could keep your voice tucked away
in the dark corners of my phone
but ever since you left
your voice has echoed off my walls,
turning plastic bag and i'm made infant
and i couldn't stop suffocating in your name
so now i sleep on the floor of my sisters room.
I would rather stay awake from her snores
than be haunted by a ghost
of someone who's still alive.
Wait.

Are you?
I haven't heard about you in a while,
I mean i know your friends said
you weren't doing too well.
I didn't think it was that serious.
You were never doing too well.

My psychologists told me define Regret.
Regret is never getting to apologize to the dead.
Regret is crying more last night
than I did at your funeral.
Regret is ***** after too much alcohol
and not enough prescription.
Regret is the burn marks that don't need cigarettes.
It is knowing I should have picked up
the last time you called.
Because you didn't leave a voicemail.
All you left was your voice.
Empty is the sound of your voice.
Addiction is the sound of your voice.
Recovery can never be the sound of your voice.
Regret is that it used to be.