Everywhere I look, there's an emptiness
where you’re supposed to be.
I told the doctors how I see nothing in everything,
so they prescribed pills to help me see.

My room is always so cold
but your breath was so hot.
I told the doctors I still feel it on my neck
so they gave me more pills to make it stop.

I took the pills for years
but they haven’t helped at all
So I stopped the prescriptions
and started my downward fall.

The doctors will never fully understand
that I will always look for you everywhere I go.
Antidepressants and mood stabilizers are making my mind a
bomb, ready to blow.

it becomes a glaring match
between me and the girl
on the other side of the island

we go at each other like
tiger cubs, too young to
know when we have sunk
our teeth in too deep.
no chaperone to break
us up and send us away
to our corners
we keep going until
one of us has ended up laying
cold on the floor

it has become
a staring contest
between me and the orange
bottles as its fine print shouts
at me the signs i have
to look out for
just so i can be sane

safe
alright.

Dear Bliss,
Some day I feel as I I may be able to write an ecstatic poem
Of abstract hues
Of shimmering light
Avoiding the blues
Avoiding the fright

Dear faith,
Some day I feel as if I may be able to write a hopeful poem
Of curious faith
Of embracing hope
Avoiding struggling fate
Avoiding chiseled rope

Dear Me, Myself, and I
Some day I feel as if I may be able to tip toe
Across the ash
Without burning my calloused feat.
Some day

i want to go home
and swallow each tablet
in the bottle of pills
which are supposed to
make me not want to
do so.

I don't want to live on medication
my whole life.
I want to get better
but I dont.
this has been a part of me for so long
that I don't want to let it go.

open the door
a man stands there with a smile
the package he passes
is not on my Christmas list
that doorway sure is no chimney.

shaking, frightened, it's finally time
alone, i unfasten the bag,
as if it's the first brithday
that my grandma is no longer with us.

this was the most expensive present
i have ever received
although the grantor is no ******* Santa Claus
&
that instant i recognize
my existence
lies in these jars.

i outwitted mother nature
if i begin consumption
i live

if not well.....*How Will It End?

Dry white pills rattle
in their dark green chamber.
Large and hard and pure,
they leave soft dust
where they clack together.

The cap spins free easy
when I fumble the bottle
and they trip eagerly
into my hand, so that
I must select my savior.

It takes hold of my muscles
and releases their grip on me,
fills my hanging head with its
whiteness rather than my red,
and gives my grinding teeth peace.

It ushers in sleep,
who has circled at the door,
smooths the sharp edges
of my breath in the
darkness, and tucks me in.

Self-medicate to keep the hatred down
Self-medicate to keep the ***** down
Self-medicate to keep the sadness down
Self-medicate and pick your poison
pick the one you haven't tried for a newer
buzz
for a newer feeling
for a newer hate
self-medicate, extrapolate
miss yourself and all the hate
because the devil is mine today
the devil is mine today
to do with what I please
self-medicate and fall
a spiral
a helix
something familiar to feel the feelings
something familiar to feel the people cry
self-medicate to feel your mother cry
what am I becoming today, who shall I be
a dashing rogue who doesn't care, someone alone
a dashing rogue at the bottom of an ocean
with a portal to another world where I am normal
where I matter
*self-medicate

Stumble on the ragged bones and fur of a deer above the spring,
choke on fear and grab your dog, drag him (and you) away.
Three years later, come upon the picked over corpse of a button buck in the upper field,
notice that there’s only half of it, back away and shudder.
Older now, pass half a dozen bloated carcasses along back country roads,
sigh, swerve to avoid the bloodstains on the pavement.
Meanwhile, your father’s got a doe in the bed of the truck strapped down still warm,
step back to keep the ****** snow off your boots, smile.
There is blood dripping from your nose and your brain feels like it’s rotting,
a blight of molding fur in a fallow field; picture fire, not bones.
Before, herds crept from the tree line at dusk while you sat around the flames,
grazing the lower field until they bolted at the howl of coyotes.
There is a bottle of pills and a carved antler whistle on your dresser;
one could save you, one might **** you. You know which is which.
Stagger through the woods with blurring eyes and a hanging head,
trip on a mouse-chewed antler and pick it up, smile, list right.
There is a white fawn standing plain in the bottom field that will disappear come winter.
Pull the arrows from your eyes; you can feel them, you know they’re there.
When the pain leaves you will run, fleet as deer, and outstrip the exhaustion that
howls at your heels. You will be alive again, and stop rotting.
Meanwhile, try not to trip on your bones, body trying to drop as though from a headshot.
Don’t lie down yet- the blood will scrub clean eventually.

Chicken-scratch staining
this prescription glass grasping
on getting life back.