No one asked
why I laughed too hard at 9 a.m.,
why my hands shook
when the room was too quiet,
why my bag clanked,
why I kept a hoodie on
even in the heat.
I was thirteen,
and life felt too big to touch,
......
You sit where I swore I’d never see you again—
bottle half-drained,
still sweating in the dark,
like you never left.
You wear my fingerprints
like trophies.
You know what I’ll do
before I do it.
......
I was eleven
when the burn started to feel like home—
not the fire,
but the numb that followed.
The breathtaking silence
of my brain slowly
shutting down.
It wasn’t rebellion,
not really.
......
When I was young
I didn’t know the difference
Between beer and root beer
Vodka and water,
But now I know
I know when i see
my dad drinking his
“Root Beer” or when
I see my step-mom
Mixing Dr.pepper with water
......
We passed pens like rumors
in the bathroom,
smoke curling
into secrets we never wanted to keep.
It wasn’t rebellion,
more like trying to make the day
a little softer around the edges,
like padding a fall
we already knew was coming.
......
The things about drugs
is at first
you get high.
You never want to come down,
and then you do.
And maybe you didn’t love it at first,
but you start to chase
those 10 seconds of buoyancy,
that minute of relief,
those 10 minutes of anticipation,
......
From age 8, risky behavior was my best friend.
It started with cutting my wrists,
not for death but for the sensation.
It was like my brain took too long to register
the pain that I felt, so long that I sometimes didn’t feel it.
At age 11, I got drunk for the first time.
Felt a little silly, a little lighter. Everything made me laugh just a little harder.
At 11, I gave myself a tattoo. The burning sensation of a too dull needle
and not skin safe ink made me feel
ALIVE.
......
I was eleven
when I learned the burn of vodka
could quiet the voice in my head,
the one that kept asking
why am I still here?
I drank from a water bottle filled with Bicardi
in the back of 8th grade history,
and the teacher’s words became
white noise I floated in.
......
We passed pens like rumors
in the bathroom,
smoke curling
into secrets we never wanted to keep.
It wasn’t rebellion,
more like trying to make the day
a little softer around the edges,
like padding a fall
we already knew was coming.
......
I was eleven
when the burn started to feel like home—
not the fire,
but the numb that followed.
The breathtaking silence
of my brain slowly
shutting down.
It wasn’t rebellion,
not really.
......