I don’t get to engage in life honestly, 

like that somewhere out there 

normal person who gets up 

and stretches, yawns 

and starts their day. 

I’m so jet lagged. 

I am paying penance 

at the cellular level. 

My bones ache, 

my nerves

tingle

twitch 

or

scream. 

The body I 

carry, the one that

 I’m schlepping around

was there for every last injury 

that I inflicted on myself in distress.

Although some on purpose cuts were made

most of my sins were chemical, only some

ever verging on the side of surgical

a little handful of pills, as a treat

a little dance with alcohol

a half pound vial

of ancient 

vintage

dental murcury 

solid thick glass

sturdy heavy liquid 

it moves like it had its own 

intent and willingness to slide

eagerly straight down the gullet

I feel like I am a reanimated corpse.

and I’m also not sure if that’s not indeed factual

Perhaps it is because the meat bears the heavy load

of the whole history of the ways I’m trying to

destroy myself and all the ways that

I continue to destroy myself.   

I know my sins and I 

pay the price 

in taut 

sinew. 

My muscles 

hold the memory 

of impacts, physics

colliding me in those crashes

my hips hold the tension memory of rapes. 

I know for sure that the body keeps the score, 

I even went on to read his textbook. 

I show up every morning 

in recovery and it 

doesn’t feel 

like

it’s

work 

but it’s hard

and heavy on the soul

and boring to slog through

and growing, but ultimately slow.

You have to be so consistent with it,

The only work ethic I even have

is for art that I don’t even sell. 

I have a few rules down pat. 

Things happen in silence. 

But I know one thing.