It is hard to get out of bed in the morning
Without your face to kiss
Your body to hold
Your voice to listen to

You were like the first cup of coffee in the morning
Warm and alluring
Life was easier with you in it
And I grew accustomed to that
But now you're gone and it seems I have forgotten
How difficult life is for someone like me

When you struggle to get out of bed in the morning
For no apparent reason it seems
Things are hard
But forgetting what that feels like
And being thrown back into it with no warning
Is even harder

I think of you as poison
The way you loved me so passionately
And then not at all
You metamorphosed my pleasure into pain,
My bliss into a broken heart
I am accustomed to jumping from one extreme to the other
But that doesn't mean this hurts any less

With my head full and churning
I find comfort in my cigarettes
As I endlessly and tirelessly
Search for a way to turn my mind off
To no avail

Sometimes I look in the mirror
And have no idea who or what I am looking at
So I stare and stare and stare
Then I disappear all together
And I see nothing
And I see no one

She smells of cigarettes and flowers
I could rant about her beauty for hours
When we kiss, I'm in another dimension
When we're apart, I swear something's missin'

Waitressing at work today
a guy came in
**** looking, tough guy
kind of like he never grew up

but he had the cutest
shy smile
when i miscounted his change
and left me a generous tip.

I like stuff like that.
I like people like him.

I hope he liked me too.

I like to come in
and lie on my bed
With the window open
and blinds all the way up
To let the sun warm me up
and the breeze make me curl
Into a lopsided ball
with a blanket on my feet.

I like to stay there for a few hazy minutes
To think about all the things
I don’t want to do
And to summon the energy required to perform tasks
That require so little physical force
It’s embarrassing.

I like to think that I deserve a break
Because I woke up so early and had to face the cold
Of this winter that produced so little snow
So I roll over and grab a connecting device.
I like to lie on my stomach or side
While looking through pictures of beautiful places
And beautiful people
And beautiful ideas
To tell myself that’s where and who I want to be.

I like to believe that staying here
Mostly doing unenjoyable tasks
That make my body and mind feel bad
Is going to pay off in a few years.
I like to imagine that I am brave
Enough to admit to myself
That this is not really for me
Because I am not happy.

I like to put the thoughts
Of the unfortunate facts
Concerning my approaching death
Out of my head.
I like to understand that I am being too dramatic
On the subject of my life and my feelings
Because in the big picture
what I want
is not important
So I should come back
and lie on my bed.

Somewhere in your lecture, you say
"you have addiction problems"

you don't know how right you are
but you don't know how strong I am.

I have fought pills, cough syrup
energy drinks and cutting
and you'll never know.

but I've won.

I may have addiction problems
but I ain't gonna let morning tea turn into one.
I trust myself more than you ever have
and that's what's helping me learn to love myself
and beat those addictions.

so drag me down all you want,
but all it's doing is helping me stand tall
(and showing me what I can defeat,
by getting me started in the first place)