What Scares Me Is That I’m Getting Better (audio) (day 87)

You could never drink enough. Even if you gave it everything you had. Threw your whole mind in it, your whole soul, whole body, let it drink you like an ocean of unforgiving power and pain. You could never drink enough to bury yourself for long enough. They tell me poison creates a thirst for itself and I find that funny. I never knew that could be a thing anything was allowed to do let alone me. Drink me in. Take my hands and my skin and swallow it all in like the life of the bottle depended on the life inside of me but I don’t need the drinks. I don’t need your shifty eyes. I don’t need your fucking fake smile. I’m so sorry this happened to you I’m so sorry you hit a wall where most find a gateway. I had no idea you had a problem. The irony in full effect, highlights in your hair drunk beneath the sunlight.

Watching as the ships sail by. Sky blue eye. The tears we learn how not to cry. Bubbles drifting in the wind, iridescent screams. Brittle ivory sleeves. I receive an alert on my phone in the late afternoon. The cloud which once veiled the sun has turned to night and snow is on its way. It isn’t that big deal. The wind nearly bends me sideways but it has been worse before, and much darker. I make a reservation at the same hotel we had our last screaming match in. I remember how you lit my cigarette and told me I was hopeless. I was weak. I was less than the least amount of effort and you know what I did when I took the key? I ran like hell. I came back. Like a fucking fool I came right back. I’m so fucking done coming back. To any of it. To all of it.

I have come far enough now to see that none of it can be the same because if so then all of it is. The oceans of eyes on the slight rays of heat. A summer in the threat of hot winter trees. I walk around the block so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. I could tell you things but you don’t have the time. I have been hurt before. I know what that feels like. Your back to me like a thousand knives. I drag a nail across my lips. I make a scratch on the unlocked door. In the end you want to talk to me about it. As if the words won’t agitate a taste for themselves and ruin a good time like I always did. What scares me is it’s worse than usual. What scares me is that I’m getting better.

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Author’s note: Please do not put your shit on mine. I write poetry because I am made of it and I do not ever tame that impulse. Let it be what it is. You wouldn’t lecture a painting on a wall in an art gallery about how to heal itself. Remember I am sharing my art but as personal as that is, I am still some stranger on the internet you know very little about.