some feelings now
have faded
like the tears and
panic i washed off

but others remain
still the urge to
cry and still the stings
where i am hurt

i am no longer
a child
but my sleeves
tell me i am vulnerable
and immature
seeking attention
and never think
about anyone's feelings
but my own

my sleeves tell me
i am selfish

and i want to cry
for if those things
were really true
i think hurting
myself would be low
on my list of priorities
and instead i would go
after targets less close
to the center of my
regrets

hurt and violate others
people i won't have to
see every day
for the rest of my life

but there they are
cuts and scratches
i'll keep to myself
trying not to be selfish

you left me fumbling
uncomfortably attempting to adjust my ideas
as you carefully slipped yourself out of the
home you had made in my heart,
you left no note
although you owed me nothing
i still felt betrayed

god, i've written so many poems about you
despite the fact that you'll never read them
thinking about you tears my chest in half
and i keep reopening the wound
you were never mine to begin with
but when i see you with others
i grow irrationally jealous
it's been so long
but time cannot heal all wounds

selfishly i wonder
what if you had been mine?

When one is forced to stop drinking, the first thing felt is shame. It is recognition that coerced abstinence was inevitable. The court told me No alcohol and I said Okay. An assessor of the state told me If you picture life past 30, you stop now: he might have added For the longevity of both you and your relationship(s), but it might be his own history stopped him. The morning I crashed my car was not cold like today. Suburbs are generally quiet at four-thirty; runaways choke-chain drooping eyes to a bedpost for a few more fickle hours, hoping (praying) body keeps pace with hunger. I was hungry, and we went to get food. My brow beats ripples into the airbag. In county my sheltered white life was a blanket doused in gasoline. The sheltered white mind may scream but the sheltered white body cowers under concrete. In class I was assured Alcoholism runs in the family. The gene plagues Hendrix men as a curse of choice. It's a gun in a knife case. Six months sober; it still itches. I'm still hungry. The state told me I was Lucky [I] didn't **** someone. I was selfish. I was selfish because I thought they meant me.