When they tell you what recovery looks like
don’t believe them.
Don’t believe them when they start counting days
as if using really meant it’s time they start over.
Recovery is not chips in a jar
or chips in a hand
or chips in a bag
as they smash when they land.

I know I man who held me heart
at the same time that he held
a pipe
and I never saw him
in his confession months
down the line

as
starting over.

When they tell you what recovery looks like
and what step is the starting point
don’t believe them.
Sometimes this shit works backwards
sometimes there aren’t steps
but walls to build and then to climb over.
Sometimes there are circles
and maybe
maybe you’re trapped in a cycle
but circles and cycles aren’t always bad things.

When they tell you to put yourself first
don’t believe them.
When they tell you to put them first
don’t believe them.

When they tell you it’s...

He told me about the drugs again
I could have sworn we were passed this.
But he told me about the drugs again
and how he’s unsure he’ll get passed this.

12 years he says
and here we sit
on a couch that has begun to feel more burden
than comfort
more comfort than
growth
more past than present.

I was afraid to leave the couch.
Pack and get passed this.
Thought leaving meant
I never loved him
thought leaving meant
he’d lose everyone who ever loved him
thought leaving meant
12 years was more powerful
than lifetime
past
more valuable than future
than present
than now.
I am afraid to leave.
The couch
is still a place we can come back to
but I question who I’m sitting next to.

Question if who I loved
is still who I love
if I’m capable.
Feel like
I am more anxious and less agent,
more fear than
hope.
Not sure
that I’m strong enough.

Wonder if I’ll drive myself...

They etched forever in a photograph
hoping forever tasted like
first time
new
like first kiss
nervous.

And if forever were
to be comfortable
we hope that it at least
taste warm.
Apple pie
sweet
dessert
an uneccessary course
but one we couldn’t say no to.

But comfortable tastes
cold
heat only coming from the burn
it is icicle
dangerous
cuts your tongue
has you trip over words.

they etched forever in a photograph
but could only think of girl winning boy
how
unmagical
unusual
less romance and more persistence
forever felt like
girl having to win boy
over and over again.

like girl having to convince boy
of the safety in her arms
the moisture in her legs
how for girl
it was novelty
but for boy it was
normal.
Nothing he hadn’t experienced before.
She asked him
to pretend
like first time for her
was at least first time with her
she wanted
craving.

Like when...

I remember telling my therapist
that I kept envisioning having a panic
attack on the plane
weeks before boarding.

30 plus hours of travel
we came up with solutions.
Well
we came up with solution
well
we acknowledged the problem
and decided I’d meditate my way through.

But it never worked
despite all of my wishing it to.

I remember 30 plus hours of flights
and no panic attack.
Relief.
It was all in my head
much like
it’s always just all in my head.

Imagining doesn’t always lead
to happening
except when it leads to happening
because
you know
there’s always the trip home.

30 plus hours
for the way home
and this was the shortest
though I swear it was the longest
but they’ll show you it was the shortest
but I’ll tell you it can feel like the longest
when you’re flying alone.

Alone
in the sense that
no one on that plane speaks your language
and that thing you...

They always ask me
if I ever write anything happy?

Sometimes I flip pages
until I find some random blurb
about squirrels
or the changing seasons.

They don’t know I’m writing about
how depression isn’t here to stay
and how nice to know
that the leaves fall
and weeds can grow
in the hardest of places.

No, I think
I don’t really write happy poetry
but I make the weeds look
damn beautiful.

These are weeds
being torn from
my flesh
as I tell them
you were always
beautiful
you were only
labeled by language
that couldn’t capture
your ability
to break pavement.

It’s ugly isn’t it?
This ability
to crush the walls
they worked so hard
to build.

And why they wonder
do I not write happy poetry?
Because in the moment
that I feel happiness
I bury my nails into its back
before it runs to find another lover.

Happiness is fleeting
we say
And I don’t much feel like...

I decided last night
that I would sleep alone for the rest
of my life.
Mainly
since I had slept alone for all of
my life
and that even on those nights I spent
laying next to a warmer body
I felt more alone than when my
cold feet
only had each other
to keep company.

I’m not quite sure
if this realization brings me peace
or sadness.

This is either giving up
or giving in
to myself.

I’m also not sure if the latter there
is meant to be a good thing
or a bad thing.

To no one’s surprise
I am writing this alone in my bed
my feet
have never
felt colder.
I have a hunch the heater has been
giving me a headache
so now I fear too much heat
about as much as I hate the
oncoming cold.

He still sees me as an optimist
somehow.
He said so.
That despite it all,
“I love your heart.”

I thanked him from
the toilet.
He has no idea
how much either of those
things mean to...

I speak loud enough to
drown out
whatever noise
I was thinking.

And I repeat it
and repeat it
and repeat it
until
I fucking
believe it.

It’s not lying
I’m merely correcting myselt
scrubbing out these
falsifications
and replacing ‘em
with new
information.

I scream Jesus
you’re not
supposed to work
that way
I thought we got
everything tuned up
but now
I think there was a
warranty
and that I just
ran out of luck.

It rings
it rings.
My brain
don’t like
being inside of me
it begs to stretch
and to be free
saying
it’s dark and
claustrophobic.

I’ll spread it out
I’ll spread it out.

[Ethan Van Renen]

I realized one day
that I could never
get clean enough
be spread
thin enough
I said that to him
but I was looking
in the mirror
and his ears
my ears
were
in no distance
that they could hear

this piece
of advice.
My eyes
seemed to ponder
cleanliness
...

It was delightful to
have sat in your presence.
You looked to me
like a collection of hands
set to protect me
from the sun.

I sat under your dancing
shadows
a pattern to keep me
mesmerized as it moved
with the light.

I looked through you
at your ever growing stature
hands upon hands
thick and thin
maybe protection
but the caution tape
stated otherwise
as if you could
come tumbling upon me
and I would be buried
under those hands.

A fate
to be envied.

But you do not budge
in such a way that could
break you.
You move as if you
are liquid.
Maybe you thought
I wouldn’t notice
but wind cannot
be ignored.

Your fingers danced
you swayed
reacting appropriately
to nature’s push.

I watched you
wishing I could learn to
find such peace in
movement
such fluidity
in response to a
change in direction.

And how her power
made your soul shudder
and as I watched
mine...

I find a kind of peace
in the scent you’ve left
with me.
But these things
these things tend to
fade quickly.

Hooked. I think
and sense
this is nothing
but a warning sign
something similar
to an ignorant
denial.

You’re everything
I’ve said no to.
But these red flags
aren’t blowing in the wind
like they used to.

Your scent
brings me a kind of peace.
I think this is cigarettes
and late nights
inhale
and release.

But I breathe you in
and try to hold you
in every second.
The distribution of your cells within
my chest
it’s unhealthy obsession.

I don’t know what
smells good anymore.
Or what my own skin
is supposed to remind
me of.
I’ve lost all my senses
it’s all mixed up.

These are late nights
and cigarettes
and I remember
how I don’t want
to go back to those
moments
that I used to forget.

But I already seem to be
forgetting,
what it is I’m made...

The guitar strings enter
my throat.
The feeling of
metal intwines me
my tongue is squeezed
but it is soothed.
The wires are not
sent to damage
to cut
or to make bleed.

They are full
of joy.
And they
taste good to me
and to him
and to his finger tips
that run
quickly
hands that slide
back and forth.
This may be
the only joy
he knows.

And for the first time
in a long time
I taste the joy
not the depression
or the bitterness.

There is no call for requests
but I throw out my requests.
I want desperately
to feel our voices
twist together
as we are transported
to the first land
our blood was shed on.

I request war songs
I remember
from childhood
never knowing
I was singing of war.
It was celebration
and culture,
stained with death.

And now I sing of war
with him
and am
simply
reminded
of childhood.

Strange
how the savory sound
of violence
reminds me...