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This room was taught to hold its breath,
When I return through sideways doors.
It never asks for confessions or depth—
Just witnesses how silence feels as thorns.

The world outside is daytime hinged.
But my world was stitched in neon dusk.
A phantom fang lives deep within
And bites each time I build my trust.

I move in patterns, accidentally bound—
In rituals of coping that lasted too long.
The hours know where I'll be found—
Beside myself, unwillingly wrong.

The ***** laundry I clean but don't.
A second shadow nailed at my heel.
The lamp that needs a light disagrees.
Between being fake and being who I feel.

I keep it clean—or clean enough—
My eyes are dry; my voice is clear.
My morbid truth, dressed in common fluff.
Always finds a way to disappear.

The soul—if that’s still something I hold—
Is brined in need, like selfish sin.
This isn’t wanted or considered bold.
  It's survival masquerading as skin.

I never meant to dig this much,
My lack of harmony buried in song.
But a body that's balanced upon a crutch
Is still a body—just not as strong.

I’ve made a friend with myself detached,
Though he eats a lot more than he feeds.
Whispers like he knows he's an accident.
This teaches me, what my own silence means

The habits aren't even the worst of me—
It’s what remains when they're gone.
The way my lungs choose not to breath.
Choosing not to breathe all on their own.

So, I exist in the lowercase,
Half-typed and never quite complete.
But even glitches need their place—
So here I am, on loop. On repeat…
****** Leaves My System

Others — white and dark —
Order their coffee in environmental mugs.
You don’t get stars,
Only reused syringes.

****** leaves as joy —
A nub with no shadow.
Trauma’s shadow is bright white
In my pipe.

Who says addicts are unclean?
I scrape my pipe and cooker,
Shockingly clean.
I don’t get anything.
UC tomorrow —
Do you sleep sound?

The rush — excitement.
Why wrap so tight?
Don’t break the crack in the pipe.
Sounds like joy.
Smoke fills my lungs.
Yet I get nothing.
In burning light,
Where was my life?
Vapor fills the room.
Oh, there’s a feeling —
I’m content.
How about you?

Could you ***** yourself a hundred times
Just to feel a little?

Stop — there’s blood in the needle.
You think an ****** is good?
You’ve never seen blood mixed with life in a needle.
Trust me — don’t try.
You miss all the shots you don’t take.
Ones you don’t take can’t **** you.

I wish they would —
The ones that hit hurt more than the ones that miss.
Well, ask him:
******, needle, arm —
The true holy trinity.

Just ask Jesus —
Blood of Christ, blood of an addict,
Redeem me.

Needle exchange —
Well, I need a life exchange.
Maybe something sharper.
Sorry, I meant to say spare change.
The air's too dry,
my lips chapped,
but no ordinary balm will do.

Why don't you wear it first,
let it melt into your warmth,
then let me steal it back,

until the taste of your lips
becomes my only addiction.
B May 20
Once in a while I realize
I am really addicted to the pain
This addiction gives no prize
Only giving me more to strain
The red corner
Stares at me blankly
I should be dead at the shore
I’ll just have to use this shank
CPR on wounds will never go so great
Bleeding more will my nails have done
The one I love is not my mate
He's just there to have some fun
Heavy Hearted May 17
The two years that you’ve known me, have made up the decade’s end ,
Of ten years in which I’ve faught to skip
Obsessed with my past’s relationship-
To retain the hope, know dobtlessness’s equipped
To embrace thyself, and to be true
When we begin to lose our grip,
Sketching the silhouetted shadow’s tip,

I'll leave here.
   I leave behind.
        I'll leave today-

& wont return.

You know these things about who I am, that no one else might understand
From

When you go so far to facetiously thank-  what you know to seek forgiveness for
Your once full word, now I know is blank
As gratitude we both deplore.
All the cop outs and shifting blame
The toxic behaviors remaining he same
Tho might say thay you feel the same
You've never known what we've to gain.
Us tortured youths, from diamond minds
Extrapolate, whatever, we may find
Worthile exchanging for our time.
Something about All I've absorbed
Is why your kiss is now abhorred
All I've precieved against my will
Ive done so by running up that hill.
As if I could make a deal with God,
and get him to change our places-
I'd be running up that road
Running
Running up that building

With no problems.
To Dr. Ariel Graff,
Someone I once thought of as a friend, as brief and nieve as that was, I still wish he were. Written the second last time I was in his house, when I finally realized.
EJ Crowe May 20
"Sugar It Is"
By E.J Crowe

I sit there at my dinner table
under the flickering bulb of the lamp.
My eyes—heavy.
My heart—corrosive.

I grab my coffee,
staring at my gruesome reflection
in the cup.

I don’t like what I see.
A man who's given up.
A man who used to be a lion...
but now resembles a lamb.

I throw my cup—
BOOM. CRASH.
Glass echoes in my skull
like a banshee's scream,
lingering,
filling my soul with acid and rot,
venom and hate.

I fall to the floor,
tearing up.
“I—
AM—
BETTER!!”

The light flickers out.
Dead.
Casting elongated shadows
across the wall.

I laugh.
I reflect.
I rejoice.

My life is far from perfect.
Since I was a young man—
filled with **** and fury—
I was labeled damaged goods.

A young man ****** at the world.
****** at school.
****** at my parents.
My foster home.
My life.

But no one takes credit
for the very monster they created.
Guilt shifting
like a sideshow
on a busted projector—
society projecting
its insecurities onto me.

But I smile.

I pick up the shattered glass.
Too numb to feel.
A piece slices my hand—
I stare at the bright red
bleeding in the dark kitchen,
reminding me—
I’m only human.

I grab another cup of coffee.
And instead of sugar...
I put in crushed Percs.
…I mean Oxys.
…I mean Adderall.
…I mean—
sugar.

I’m not that beast anymore.

I’m me.
Broken.
Beautifully flawed.
A human.

Sugar it is.
EJ Crowe May 20
Photograph
By E.J. Crowe

There’s a photograph in my skull—
not framed,
not real,
just scorched behind my eyes.

It shows me grinning,
sunlight behind me like a halo made of gasoline,
ready to ignite.

No weight in my stare.
No rot in my gut.
No ghosts in the corners.

A lie.
A pretty corpse of a moment
that never lived.

I rewrite it—
over and over—
like a ****** tracing veins,
searching for peace
in a place
that never existed.

But truth?
Truth is a blade
that doesn’t ask permission.

And when I wake—
I’m soaked in cold sweat,
jaw clenched so tight
my molars scream.

Sometimes I grind until my gums bleed,
coughing up iron
like my lungs forgot how to breathe
anything
but memory.

The past doesn’t haunt.
It infests.

It slithers inside me like black mold—
whispers behind drywall,
scratches under the floorboards
of my skull.

The pills?
Still call like old lovers.

The bottle?
Still sings lullabies
in a key
only I remember.

My thoughts come like stampedes—
hoofbeats in my ribcage,
crushing
everything
soft.

Sometimes I swear
my heart wants out—
wants to claw through bone
and hurl itself
into silence.

I’m a good dad.
I hold bedtime stories
with trembling hands.

I’m a good husband.
I kiss her forehead
even when I feel like a ghost
in my own bed.

So why does it still crawl?
Why does it still eat me?

The photo shifts again—
eyes go dead.
Smile melts into a snarl.

The background rots—
as if acid chewed through the film
and left nothing
but static and flies.

I smell bleach,
blood,
formaldehyde.

My tongue tastes copper
and regret.
The air grows thick—
with the stench of old hospitals
and failure.

My wife stirs.

I freeze.
I can’t let her see this version of me—
the one made of sand
and gasoline.

I stagger into the bathroom,
hands shaking
like addicts at sunrise.

I stare into the mirror—
but the thing looking back
isn’t me.

It grins.
It knows.
It’s waiting.

SMASH.

Glass explodes like a scream.
Shards dance through the air—
one kisses my cheek,
but I don’t flinch.

Can’t.

I’m too numb to bleed properly.
Too lost to be found.

The cut runs red,
but I’m already hollow.
Already fading.

Faith?
A joke with ****** punchlines.

Hope?
An echo
in a burned-down cathedral.

All that’s left
is me—
a leaking cracked faucet
in a basement
the world
forgot.
X May 19
I am filled with emotions I cannot bare

Mary is there to make sure I ate
She helps me relax and rids me of self-hate

To help me calm down everyday, she sings me her song
A wonderful tune I hear through the bubbling of my ****
I feel her warmth on my chest
She truly does help me rest

Mary is like no other
Her voice and touch cannot compare
Though she says I’m no bother,
I fear I depend too much on her care

Mary is always willing to provide
Even when I take more from her than I should,
She always gives me her warmth and a place to reside

Since I can remember,
Mary has been by my side
No matter the extent to which I’ve been upset,
She’s always been a helping hand in making me forget

I can no longer hide within her convincing high
I’m starting to think we won’t always see eye to eye
Mary is my best friend
I’d hate to say goodbye

But I’ll always wonder if this relationship should end and finally die
This is my first official poem. I would love to hear any thoughts and, of course, criticisms as I am looking to improve. Thank you!
Schuyler May 18
They stop me in funerals, in reunions and
say to me, “You did it. You broke the cycle”
My fingers twitch, a deep pit in my belly
A knife twists, the memory of her last words
With fentanyl-stained lips twisted into a smile
she kisses me one last time, a sharing of poison
As her breath leaves, a body with no brain
And I say, “But did she have to die?”
i miss her
EJ Crowe May 18
A Marionette In The Dark
By: E.J. Crowe

I drip puke and spit blood.
Bags under my eyes—
heavy with contemplation,
under the toxic spell of drugs.

The alluring call…
the pills whisper to me from behind the walls:
“Come home.
You belong to me.”

I stumble to my closet, slow—
covered in glistening sweat and dried *****.
I muster the strength to find my pills—
my beautiful percs,
so pretty,
so good—
a potion to forget
the awful, decaying wound
of this festering world.

I SEE THE LIGHT.

I trip—
fall
into the darkest corner of my room.
Huddled,
knelt,
dumping out my faded RX bottle.
Counting them.
Smelling them.

The demons finally have their hold.

I look around—
my musty, dry room,
a sliver of light peeking
through a busted makeshift curtain.
Dust particles dance
in the sunray like Ashes

I haven’t left the house in a week.
Haven’t showered.
Haven’t changed.
The floor’s a graveyard—
scattered crushed pills,
broken beer cans,
whiskey bottles,
dried blood.

What have I become?

The addiction became possessive—
controlling.
I was its marionette.
It weaved the strings of my bane existence.

Hopeless.
Lost.
Beautifully scared.

I hear the faint laughs
of my friends walking by the house.

***** them.
They don’t care.
My family doesn’t care.

****,
my dad gave me the pills.

Only the pills love me.

My beautiful white powder.

I use my knife to crush them.
Sweating heavy,
smelling like a living zombie.
As I drift to sleep,
my only company
is the warm embrace of my
euphoric state,
and dilated pupils.

God…

when can I be normal?
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