Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Sickness stalking like a predator
Prowling for food to eat
No matter how much prey is devoured
Still starving for more meat

Reverberating impulses echo
Cavern between each ear
Anxiety the strings attached to my limbs
Addiction expert puppeteer

It follows every place I wander
One or two steps behind
Tried so hard to shake it's grip
It seems our fates are intertwined

I don't know how the darknessentered
Must have slipped through small cracks long ago
Over years it's winded roots through my skeleton
I am afraid it will never let go

I sense the demons embedded in each cell
Molecules stamped with their names
Branded sin that never stops searing
Blistering soul with shame

Dependency my ball and chain
Tired of dragging it along
Despite best efforts to pick the locks
Shackles worn on wrists are too strong

This burden mine and mine alone
No one else can help me carry this weight
It becomes harder and harder to shuffle forward
Steps slowing at alarming rate

It appears dead ends are multiplying
Trapped inside cage constructed from my hurt
Worry that if I don't escape this hell
I'll be buried in a coffin deep in the dirt

I just want to be free of the shadows
Haunting halls of my head
Black silhouettes in peripheral
Monsters slumbering beside me in bed

Their tentacles wrap around judgement
Doubt fills every crevice in my brain
Can't tell if it's a temporary condition
Or I've gone completely insane

But paint a smile on my lips
In case onlookers ask how I feel
Under surface my heart is suffering
Chasing happiness in high that isn't real
I've got a creature inside me and it's always hungry no matter how much I feed em
Days melt into each other
Like wax figures under the sun
Monday was four days ago
I could swear it was Tuesday today
8:00AM was one hour ago,
It’s 8:00PM
What did I eat today?
The pain of tomorrow
for years, i turned a blind eye.
sweeping caps beneath the rug,
until first light cracked,
then by morning,
it still wasn’t enough.

i drank, after greeting the day,
sometimes with coffee,
often just straight,
took a taxi to work,
then drank more on my break.
customers adored me,
or who they thought i was —
my second self
with blurred edges,
slightly louder than the dark.

some i crossed paths with
tried so hard to help —
to drag the demons out.
but the deeper they dug,
the harder i pulled away,
instead.

i’d sketch pretending on my skin
with ink from an earthy red.
dressed up for therapy,
clouds trailing like a veil —
midnight fantasy
chased with violet gin.
i called it survival,
but it tasted like sin.

spelled my sorrows on the carpet —
each drop a false reprieve.
and whilst they dripped
like honeyed mercy,
no one asked about the burn.
now bare, without prayers,
i’m an offering at your altar
after swearing i’d never return.
this one is a quiet remembrance of a toxic relationship — and how we never quite managed to break up.
June 28, 2025
FoxCarcass Jun 28
Am I my own desires?
Bound to jump on my instincts
My body stripped
My eyes devoid of light
The same motions we used to make
With a stranger I just met
My consciousness altered
Reality has become a dream
But when I sleep I have none
What choice do I have
When it’s between the devil and my grave?
Daniel Tucker Jun 27
You are on a very long list
of those who can’t though
they persist.

Learn the lesson of Achilles
heel: there's something that doesn't want you here.

You hold tightly the images
of misguided faith, role
models and illusory joy.
But graven images topple
as slow as dry rot and
Pandora quietly fills your
box of toys.

Your house is projected
and frozen in time.
Twenty layers of
wallpaper are peeling
your mind.

Rooms untouched like
100-year-old Mason
jar preserves. You can't
eat fruit kept for so many
years.

Your choice of worlds
kept the patterns; no
new beginnings mean
the same old ends.
You may not break all
the rules, but you sure
make them bend.

Grace seemed to touch
you as you walked a
mile or two seemingly
content. But no matter
how amazing the grace
was, you can't be where
you never went.

As long as scapegoats
hang on crosses all along
this highway like rows of
pigs hanging bloodless at
the slaughterhouse, and
as long as Western
religious pop culture icons
and other social images
replace what is real, the roadblocks and washouts
will continue to keep you
there. Achilles protected everything but his heel.


© 2025 Daniel Tucker
This speaks of the many forms of addictions we humans are susceptible to. I was inspired to write this about someone I cared for very much. They suffered from alcohol and drug addiction. I was an Addiction's Counselor back then. I am so grateful that I kinda helped shock him and others into straightening up their lives. Therapy can be intense. Often it has to be. This write is an example of it.
Matt Jun 23
I find myself falling (Again, Again, Again)
I do not mean to fall—
(but the ground keeps tilting beneath me.)
I do not mean to want—
(but the air is thick with something sweet, intoxicating.)
I do not mean to hope—
(but their laughter sounds like a promise.)

I meet a stranger / and suddenly / my heart is writing love letters in invisible ink.
I hear a voice / and suddenly / my ribs tighten like a corset, squeezing out logic.
I brush fingertips / and suddenly / I am rewriting the stars for a future that does not exist.

It happens too fast—
(like a storm that appears from a clear sky, no warning, no mercy.)
It happens too often—
(like déjà vu, like a carousel that never stops spinning.)
It happens without permission—
(like waking up in a dream you did not ask for.)

I do not love them—
(not really, not fully, not yet.)
But my heart does not understand the difference between a spark and a wildfire.

And so I burn.
And burn.
And burn.

Only to find myself—
(again, again, again)
sifting through the ashes.
Emophilia is an addiction to love. For me, I spent most of high-school hopelessly falling for crushes and being physically incapable of doing anything to stop myself from falling.
B Jun 23
Its deeper than the rest
The solely solemn valley
The canyon of my blood
Full of love and tally
I feel it on my body
Like a needle protruding outwards
Sticking out from all the pain
I hope it will scar over
For then I can have a trophy
For the time where I was but
A ******* four leafed clover
B Jun 23
Phantom drops of blood
Rolling down my leg
I feel it getting closer
To my knees and ankle true
What ever will I do
When the phantom reaches ground
And spreads it all around
That I am not unwell
But too far now to tell
It's not the pain I long for
But that phantom drop of blood
To make my legs sore
You do not sneak a peak
Without feeling that drop
Rolling down your body
Never will it ever stop
For the scars do not disintegrate
Only the blood
B Jun 23
I’ll flush the blood
Down the drain
So the only known
Will be in my brain
It doesn’t hurt
To run my fingers
Down the lines
Of red like wines
I love the pain
But I know that
The know of it
Will make me splat
Next page