Hands

are meant to hold

but you

let go

There copper tang in my mouth reminded me how I couldn't remember when I ate last. And with the unsavory taste coating my tongue, I placed a hand over my stomach, feeling the ache of hunger come up. I knew I had missed one too many meals. Couldn't remember when I last drank anything, not even water. And every idea of food or water sounded so disgusting, I finally had an answer for the teenage version of myself that loved food, that shoveled it down without waiting for a taste.

"It really is easy to forget."

And so I had, had forgotten to eat. Had forgotten to drink. Until the sleep came crashing back into me, and the food I was forcing down ran right through me. My body rejected it despite my mind saying that if I went on any longer, I might make whatever damage I was incurring worse.

"God. I think I've ruined myself."

Truer words couldn't have been spoken. Tiredness seeped into me, and I plucked up whatever sounded like it wasn't going to make me gag - literally everything - and begrudgingly forced it down. The taste hit, and I don't know why, but I was almost trying to choke back the substance from coming back up.

More. "Oh, God."

And I choked down more, forcing more substance down into my throat. And the small little beady eyes staring up at me started to catch on that I had something, and they reached for it. No. Not this time.

"Sorry, this one is for mommy."

For once, I didn't give up whatever I had to them, to their cries, and the one who screamed for everything she couldn't receive. I choked down that piece and the idea that I shouldn't binge stuff came to mind.

A thought for a later date.

I told myself that, in emergency, that excess of one thing wasn't the priority. I needed to catch up on food, on water, and everything I had deprived myself of for some weird reason to make sure I was keeping my health up. Creeping thoughts edged my mind, wondering if this is why we might age horribly, why we might struggle with our health. Keeping track of so many living things, keeping track of one's self, it was a task that took more hours in the day and I was being sorely reminded of it.

Reminded of what could happen if I wasn't careful. My health was already steps from being back in the gutter. But things needed to be done. My frustration wasn't going to come undone by watching my needs and desires stay unmet. No, it was going to come in one crashing burst after another as I tirelessly pushed myself to down myself for the next few days. Rinse and repeat.

"Rinse and fucking repeat. Get your shit together."

And I talk to myself like I talk out loud, like I walk through a crowd. Real, honest, and skeptical of the world passing me by.

If heaven so above me asks me to do my due diligence, hell below me will cast me a place for failing to meet those expectations. And I'd die, toiling it, only to recast myself in that seat far below, toiling again and again in my frustration to portion myself, my time, and everything around me until the memory of my childhood hit. When I was seven, and some thought bleached itself over my mind like a permanent stain. "You can only handle one person at a time." And that limiter resonated so hard with me in that moment of brevity, I hardly realized how much it would eat its way into everything else around me in my older age.

"When am I going to get my shit together?"

I drink most nights,

It’s enough to be considered a problem.

Because I’m not perched on a construction block outside the bar, laughing with friends-

I’m alone in my bed a few hours before work starts.

The self medication battles against my sleep medication, creating a blissful but restless combination.

I can’t feel my heart beat like this- can’t hear the rushing of blood to my temple.

I lay on my stomach and imagine in the swelter of a summer night this to be what a bottom feeder feels- uneasy and hot but quelled by a need to rest, unable to find something so peaceful as suffocating.

Despite my best efforts I do not stop thinking. My brain doubles over, tries harder to press its urgent message of horrible things to my forefront

Until I’m just drunk and sad.

What is one to do with that?

I taste the nicotine on my lips, folding them in uncertainty. Yearn for sleep. Yearn for daylight, when there’s things to occupy.

There is no sexual desire in anything I do. Nothing that elicits an early adult response. I drink more hoping it will help, but I simply get scared.

My therapist hasn’t answered my calls. I’ve given up trying. What’s the endeavour, other than to release my feelings? She won’t offer anything more- I know alll there is to.

How terrible a fate, to know it all and remain miserable?

I prop myself on an arm, my shoulder aching with the weight as I drink water listlessly. I know I will be miserable in the morning still with a headache to boot, but perhaps I will feel better. Here is to hoping, I murmur with another shot.

Fear protected by fury