‘it’s possible to love her
even after all of this’
pills
needles into arms
spoons with burnt bottoms
passed out on the floor
drooling
skinny
starving
convulsing

i knew when you
lied about being over it
you were still skinny
i saw the needle marks
in the crook of your elbow
i saw the spoons
in the back of the drawer
i knew when you
made me go home so soon
your dealer was also your affair
your husband, your ex lover
your ex life, the opposite of living
you’re dying
you are dying and it is your fault
and i have run out of empathy
yes it is a disease
yes it starts as a choice
yes
you were depressed
but you still
you.

you said.

“who cares i want to die anyway
who cares i’ll ruin my body
my brain my
relationships
my life”

the hope has left your eyes

what’s it like to look up to a destroyer
what’s it like to love a broken woman
what’s it like to watch the progression
the regression
the walking backwards
one step forward but if you say
“just one more time”
it’s 5 steps back
10 steps back
20
30
the cut is deeper
the scars are darker
and you are gone.

what’s it like
to admire an addict
to be denied what you had
to be ignored
questions go unheard
“where have you been?
is everything okay?
i miss you.”

you see the inevitable
you hope it turns out different
you hope she is the one in a million
to miss a ruiner
to cry over the loss
to realize that
you distanced yourself for this exact reason

it is sickening
and you ask
“what if”
but “what if”
isn’t
“what is”
so you vow to never go down that path
so you pray you will break the cycle
so you progress
one step at a time.

.
I'm slipping...

Winds from the past had blown hard.
Heavy clouds have returned.
Bearing gifts of broken shards,
memories discarded and mementos burnt.

I'm falling...

Footfalls fail as they sink in clay.
Fingers tremble as they grab at nothing.
The words are lost and the voice couldn't say.
The pills seem to have stopped working.

I'm regressing...

Into an all familiar territory.
A place I thought I had left far behind.
But I feel reconnected to a mirrored me.
The part I've missed since a new state of mind.

.

The way forward
From left to right
From the bottom, upwards
Version 1 to 3.0
We progress
In hope that we're improving
Enhancing
Building up
Refurbishing
Innovating
But are we, really?
We come a full circle
Only to learn
Life was never complicated
in the first place
We made it so
In our pursuit of oversimplification

Who am I? What am I?
It's been a while since I cried
Am I a brain on top of a body?
Just processor performing code?
Well, who wrote the code?
Who wrote it?
It's been a while since I was I
I'm not a brain, I have one
I've got hardware put there by Someone else
Who am I?
I'm a computer running software I didn’t write
I'm a soul interacting with a body, a brain
Whose health I neglect on a reg

What am I?
I'm a decaying accumulation of skin
And blood and bone and neurons
I got neurons in my heart
And that's a good place to start
The heart is the mouthpiece of the soul
My identity gets ******* in the whole
Idea of my performance
And my influence
Like if I sing a song badly, my soul takes the hit
And if I lead my partner astray, the whole of me is ****
The whole of me is ****

There's holes in me
But who put them there?
I combust in small increments
My skin flies off in perfect circles
They're fragments
My heart, it's hiding behind these explosions
Hiding behind them because it causes them
Because my mouthpiece is expressing my hate
My lack of love for myself
Hate is just a word we put on the shelf
It's like darkness and coldness
Describing something through absence
Darkness; the absence of light
Coldness; the absence of heat
If hate is the absence of love I might
Just be the one who beats me
Who defeats me
Who carries my heart, my brain, the rest of me
Tied around my neck on a string that I pull through
Like my body is in captivity

I'm privileged to honor this body that I didn’t make
I'm greatly gifted a brain to maintain
My heart, my body, my brain
They shouldn't be strangling me
They shouldn't be dragged through the dirt
They should be a part of me

I am a soul
I have a mouthpiece
My heart is my mouthpiece
My brain is my hardware
That rusts and which I expend

God help me love me
And Who I am
And Who You are

God, make it so apparent to me in my falling out
That I am a part of the three-legged stool
To Love You before all else
To Love everyone else
And to Love myself
Help me see You accurately
God help me
God help this American switch culture
I am not a machine that functions at the flip
Of a switch
I am a soul, a CVT, a cable that climbs up and down
Depending on the speed of the wheels
And decelerating is okay
And (not but) accelerating is wonderful

I do not go 60MPH because I flipped a switch
I go 70MPH because I climb
I climb
God help me climb
And to falter well
And to suffer well
Humble me in my faltering suffering

the bottle twists
glass falls in drifts
and air parts like flesh

there’s a terror beneath this city
trucks enter from out of town and shake the power lines
passing without pause

sometimes birds gather for days
chirps grow exponentially
before tailing into silence;
heather and brimstone
little bodies roll to the edges
and burst on the streets in red regalia

a somnolence keeps the city forgetful
time flows in fits
a streetlamp; a raven; ten gravestones
it all runs without moving

vessels dilate
hands hold themselves

there’s nothing to breathe with
an empty chalice, turned on the hour grants
heaving clenching writhing
an ocean of rust
bulb shatters, blood spills out her
mouth cave head turn faith
the world remakes itself
*******
the colour of sunflowers
bicycle chains
thirst
colonialism
wet paint

emptiness over emptiness
act without agent
lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack
peel the flesh and find flesh
always more flesh
don’t stop they know better
chirp chirp chirp
turn
exit
substance
purpose
nothing