i am not a cigarette
i will not give you a
multitude of cancers
your teeth and tongue and fingertips
will not be stained by and with me
your clothes will not hold my smoke
like your blackened lungs
in and out
i am not the tobacco you breathe
like the air is not good enough for you
i am so much worse than that

i am not a razor blade
i will not give you rows upon
rows of neat little cuts
i am not the reason your hand holds
steady enough to carve those
straight lines
like train tracks
into your skin
until they become your impenetrable armor
layers and layers
i am not your addiction
i am so much worse than that

i am not a bottle of pills
i will not give you a false sense
of medicated calm
or the hollow of a stomach empty feeling
when you are bent over the toilet
at four in the ******* morning
spewing your guts up and against
and all the way into
a white porcelain bowl
this whiteness will be more stark than
your skin when the sun does not touch it
brighter than the walls of the hospital
the sinks and the toilets and the shower stalls
and even the towels
this is the whitest white you will ever see
i am not the things you do that make you sick
i am so much worse than that

i am not the empty beer cans
along with the empty promises
of just one more
it’s always the same with you
but us humans are a pathetic bunch
destroying ourselves and then turning
to a story book deity to wash us of
our sins and wrong-doings
and make us whole and good and clean again
i have never been the beer on your breath
or the only thing in your stomach that day
i cannot make you drunk
i am not the reason why you get ****-faced
i am so much worse than that

i am none of these things
these vices and addictions
i am so much worse than those
i will fill your head with my breathe
the smell of day old sweat and self loathing
i will make you want to live ******
we will make half empty promises to
throw away our blades together
until my mom found mine
and i wondered where you disappeared off to
i will not make you puke
up anything but your lies and fears
i will wrap them in bubble-wrap and rub down
all their jagged edges until you can no longer
feel them jabbing into your lungs
and vocal cords
keeping you from asking for help
and oh baby
i can make you feel so much better
or worse than any type of alcohol ever can
i can get you drunk off my skin
the soft curves of my waist
and my pillowy thighs
i am worse than any story book
hero or villain or otherwise
because when the lights get turned on
and the closet gets checked for monsters
i do not go away
you think of my always and every day
my name is constantly on the tip of your tongue
and i know how you long to wrap your
arms around me and hold me close

you see i am worse than
all these things
because
i have a heart beat