I knew our decisions were misguided

And I chose to make them despite that knowledge

I wanted you and I to act in harmony

Needed to know every heartbeat pulsating from our two chests was in perfect synchronization

I suspected this day was coming
Now that it's finally here
Realize I'm not ready
Face my biggest fear

I want to stop desperately
Seems I've tried a lot
Every time I am ready
Stubborn addiction is not

The drugs grab control of me
Steer me straight into a wall
Pull me back into the ditch
Doesn't matter how many times I go through withdrawal

I have learned my lesson the hard way
Much too often to count
Then again the hard way
The only way I've known about

Let the ocean take away
I drown in blue misery
Wash up on some greener shores
World that in comparison is easy

Do not smoke if you can't handle the heat
You're afraid of getting burned
Flames always steal a part
Once gone not always returned

I have given up on finding myself
Buried pieces too deep
Intention was to plant them
No harvest grows to reap

So remain trapped in a cycle
Strapped by only threads
Running from my demons
Tires me as sickness spreads

No one coming to save me
I've toppled overboard
Danced on the very edge
This is my reward

Consume me as I spiral down
Watch me crash in an explosion
Go enjoy the show
Not what I have chosen

When eyes can't stand my reflection
Monster staring back
Use to blur the edges
To smudge all that I lack

Time is always running
One minute after the next
Door to sobriety is always open
In the moment hesitating perplexed

Do not quit because I don't know how
I've done it once before
Daydreaming past recovery
Cannot remember what I did it for

When the silence starts mocking me
Following a great and heavy pause or two
Hold my hand tightly
It will pull me through

I used to live alone before I knew you

so
of the mundane tragedies endlessly writ
repeat rinse repeat
repeat
how awfully awful
is the complaining without cessation
of busted everything;

recall the the doctor’s office sign
"no cure for the broken heart here"

so when I hear a Buckley sing
the words of the Cohen, High Priest of Songs,
I, a broken hallelujah,
smile with recognition
  though the true cure is
yet  still forever being researched

patience is a patient within me,
for my muses and their endless,
poking aching whispers of write, write, write, right,
they are the company I keep,
they are the company that sweeps me up
I, a broken hallelujah

they are not the desired flesh, true,
that affirms confirms and denies me
denying my needy frailties
but for now,
mine company to keep,
so when we do meet and
you greet me with a
tell me about your previous lovers
as you humanly must

will recite my poems from
from before I knew you