I relapsed after our phone call
and like an idiot I split my lip on the razor I used to cut lines

****** IS SO SILLY!
cause you can never tell what it's made of
until you're
c
 r
  a
   s
    h
     i
     n
       g            that's where we have something in common

       d
      o
     w
    n

and I know that it's just the blood in my mouth
that tastes so much like you
because the dope has always been
sweeter

seventy days felt like it could drag on for an eternity
felt like a thousand tiny almosts piled higher than the naked eye can see
felt..impossible

when I wrote about clean time I talked in measures of a few hours

it's been six hours since I held a needle to my wrist
a metaphoric gun to my head

it's been six hours since i felt the empty inside of me vanish

it's been fifteen hours since i woke up dope sick
I sweat through my sheets twice before I get tired of changing them

it's been twenty-four hours since the last time I got high so
I'm clean

Just For Today

Maybe because I'm honest with her

Told her how your fists were sculpted by your father's drug addiction
And the way your mother left him

I tell her about the nights my fingers wrap around the softer parts of you
The way in which I reminded you of the boy who ***** you
So it's no surprise when you finally started fighting back

I tell her what your blood looks like running down the crook of your arm
Or the inside of your thighs

I tell her you could never really love me except from a distance
Because I have always been made from razor blades and ****** needles
Too sharp to touch
Never soft enough to hold

What's it like falling asleep beside a ghost?

because for some reason still unseen to me
conversations with you are still so aggressive
like ripping petals off of a daisy
praying to god this time you'll love me

i made love to you with the lights on and called it a poem

every line was just the way i touched you like you meant something to me
fingertips tracing patterns between your freckles raised by the tiny hills of your cheekbones

how many different ways can i relate you to a flower blooming?
your legs stretching open at the touch of my lips

you can't imagine the way brown eyes look in the light if you haven't seen them for yourself

where it starts
1. your girlfriend will have a miscarriage
for the second time
and you, you'll start using needles
THERE WILL BE NO DIRECT CORRELATION BETWEEN THESE TWO THINGS
but you tell yourself
a daughter is what would make life worth living
and subsequently what it takes to get you sober

2. you lose your job
because you're always in the bathroom missing veins
loss of job will inevitably spiral into an
"intolerable depression"
or
"extended sadness"
or
"whatever version of this is easiest to swallow"

3. you get to spend every holiday from your birthday until The Day She Dies sitting next to your mother's hospital bed
(except for when you're always in the bathroom, missing veiins)

LATER
your sister reassures you that mom didn't know the way you also choked back guilt with all the bile and unpleasant things in your trips to the restroom
but for now you will hate yourself
hate the sticky needles
and hate the way your girlfriend leaves all her ghosts behind when she leaves you

4. you find that bathroom floors are your new home
splayed out after your 8th overdose
jail cells are just a normal tuesday
and you keep waking up to razor blades left neatly on your pillow

where it ends

5. giving up ****** is like pulling teeth
messy and painful but typically necessary
and so hard to do alone

And you don't talk to me like you used to
I wonder if you still write about the boy who ***** you
and do you think that gives Him power or
You?

and you've settled somewhere you feel like you belong
but half of my bed is still in the shape of you so really
what I meant

was when are you coming home
because nothing feels like home when you're gone