I'm scared again.
Scared of rattling plastic and the magic promises of serenity within.
Sweet sleep. Complacent work. Average thought.
Level.
Managed.
Recovering.
They don't tell you about coming down.
Coming off.
The girthy pudge that clings to your hips
or the flacid response to healthy flesh, and genuine smiles.
No slickshit rep will pour you another drink
on an oak, dark stained table
and tell you about kidney stones and pissing blood
or the constant, sick and anxious.
The man in white won't tell you the truth.
The pain.
The schism of real and you.
The were, and the am.
But he will have a stroke
and break his neck
on a very expensive
and very dark stained table.
Not six months from your eighteenth birthday
when you tell him very flatly
that this isn't working
hasn't been working
and it sure as shit isn't worth all the blood, vomit and nightmares.
Shake his dry, manicured hand.
Thank him for his hard work.
And wonder what his kids are up to.
Always wonder
what's banging on the gate,
and what was the worst another shot could do to you?
It happened.
Couldn't put it back in.
Scrabbling, scratching hunger.
Burned through everything.
Blackened and smoldering.
Something I said.
Something I did.
Something I became.
Something I am.
Clutching to a half full glass
like it was holding the
whole
god
damn
world together.
Was it the placebo?
Was it me?
And is this really the world I want to cling to?
Toppled.
So did I.
Shattered one.
Broke the other.
Left in a brave new world of crutchless noise.
Tomorrow I'll pick up the pieces.
Tomorrow I'm someone else.
Dressed.
Eager, not anxious.
Alive, smiling, rotting.
Level.
Managed.
Recovering.